


The Common Tongue of Me Loving You

by gingerteaandsympathy



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, F/M, Implied Sexual Content, Miscommunication, and it all spirals from there, more tags along the way, they meet at a bookshop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2020-09-19 09:29:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 31,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20328910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gingerteaandsympathy/pseuds/gingerteaandsympathy
Summary: An author with writer's block meets a woman in a bookshop. Or perhaps "meet" is the wrong word. Perhaps the right words are more like "hopelessly flirts with" or "kind of offends." But what does John know about choosing the right words? He's only a novelist, after all.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this fic is the result of a moodboard and accompanying drabble that i posted on tumblr and subsequently became obsessed with. my dear friends have listened to me ramble about it ad nauseum, and have helped me turn this fic into something more than the sum of its - nearly complete - parts. without them, it wouldn't exist.
> 
> i'll be adding characters and updating ratings as i go, but be warned, this is mostly the rose and john show. anyone who knows me knows that plot is not my strong suit... i'm more into prolonged, probably pointless flirting. so, my apologies in advance.
> 
> the fic is, at this point, about a chapter out from being finished, and it's doing me no good just sitting my docs, so i thought i'd share it. it's been lightly edited, but... you know, i'm done disclaiming. happy reading!

Chapter One 

The first time he saw her at _ The Bookery_, she was in line for coffee. He couldn’t, if pressed, elaborate on why he noticed her. It was something in her walk, he thought, or maybe he was just desperate for the sight of something — anything — that would get him out of this rut.

The second time, she was standing in an aisle, one hand holding a magazine, and the other hand pressed to her mouth, where she nibbled unconsciously on her thumbnail. He thought he might write it down, try to capture the little gesture, only he was just packing up to leave. And anyway, watching a woman while she read, alone with her own thoughts, felt… invasive.

But the third time he saw her, she was holding a novel. That, in and of itself, wasn't odd. After all, they were in a bookshop.  
  
What _ was _ odd was that she was holding a mystery novel.

_ His _ mystery novel, the one that he'd written years ago and long since written off as a moderately popular but ultimately forgettable debut.

His stomach dropped.

Try as he might, he couldn't forget the paperback cover that he and his agent had labored over; the paperback which was unmistakably held in two small, feminine hands.  
  
"That one's rubbish," he found himself saying to the woman as she passed.  
  
"Excuse me?" Her step wavered and she turned back to face him, eyes already alight with irritation. He fought back a smile. This was clearly a woman unafraid of confrontation, and unimpressed by snarky strangers in bookshops.  
  
"That novel," he replied, doing his best to sound polite. "I've read it before. I warn you, the ending doesn't have much of a surprise twist. Quite predictable, if you ask me."  
  
An eyebrow arched, and her lips pursed. "I didn't."  
  
"Just thought I'd spare you the boredom it will inevitably inspire," he added with a shrug.  
  
"Interesting. I didn't find it boring the first time I read it. Or the third." She was facing him squarely now, her arms crossed over the book, which was held protectively to her chest. "There's something to be said for following a path to it's intended conclusion, provided the steps are laid out elegantly. An ending doesn't need shock value to be satisfying."  
  
"And you find the ending… satisfying?"  
  
Her eyes narrowed. "I do."  
  
He finally let a smile spread across his lips. "I'm sure my agent would be glad to hear you say that. She hounded me about that last chapter for ages."  
  
That sent the woman's eyes flitting all over — from him, down to the book in her arms, back to his cafe table (where his laptop, notebook, and coffee sat in an attitude of productivity), and then once more down to the book, which she abruptly held out in front of her. Examining the cover, and then examining his face as if the two were somehow related, she said, "You're John Smith?"  
  
"In the flesh." He stood up, stretching out a hand to shake.  
  
There went that eyebrow, twitching again. He couldn't tell if she was annoyed or amused, and he was rather enjoying puzzling it out when she flicked open the book. Rapidly, she flipped to the back cover, where his headshot was printed in black and white.

“They made me take off my glasses.” He squinted at the rather grainy photo. “And get a haircut.”  
  
When her gaze slid back up to him — standing with his arm stretched over the table, no doubt smiling like the cat that ate the canary — she smirked. "I thought you'd be taller."  
  
Not what he'd expected, but he bounced back quickly, smile not wavering for a moment.  
  
"Do I write like a tall man?" he questioned.  
  
"No," she answered, voice warm with amusement. "But your protagonist is clearly over six feet."  
  
"Oh?"  
  
"He found a book stowed away on the highest shelf, without using a ladder."  
  
John laughed. "You're observant."  
  
"No, I've just read the bloody thing five times. This is my second copy. The first fell in the bath."  
  
_ Do not, under any circumstances, visualize this woman in the bath. _

“Ah.”

_ Too late. _

Based on the sparkle in her eyes, he was sure she could somehow read his mind. The theory was strengthened by her meaningful glance at the cluttered table, a clear attempt at a subject change.

“Writing?”

He grimaced. “Trying to, anyway.”

“Writer's block?” she enunciated, her tongue clicking emphatically around the ‘k.’ “Shame. Dreaming up a good mystery does seem difficult.”

Something in her tone made him want to rise to her bait. “How do you know it's a mystery?” he shot back.

Her eyes darted to the laptop screen, which was mercifully angled away from her. “What is it, then?”

He waved her question away. “Can't tell you. Violates my NDA and such.”

Her gaze became assessing, pinning him beneath its weight. _ This woman is rather frightening, _ he found himself thinking. If she made him _ this _ nervous over an innocent encounter, he couldn't imagine her truly riled up. His observations were interrupted by her laughing abruptly. “Rubbish! You've got no idea. You just said you're blocked; I say you haven't even begun yet.”

Beside him, just out of her line of sight, the blank white document loomed in emphatic agreement.

He wasn't sure what prompted him to continue. He could probably chalk it up to foolish male pride, or maybe her whiskey-sharp gaze had addled his mind. Either way, he found himself answering, “You can guess all you like. I can't tell you what the story's about.”

Her eyes narrowed again, in a movement that he was already becoming familiar with. It signaled concentration.

“So, it's definitely fiction then,” she said, right before a smile bloomed on her lips. “Well, that's one clue down. But the rest of the mystery will have to wait til tomorrow.” She glanced at the door and then back at him, as if reluctant to leave. “Do you always write here?”

“I do now,” he answered, grinning but also internally kicking himself. _ Seriously? That's a shit line, even by your unfathomably low standards. _

But it drew a laugh out of her. “Brilliant. I'll see you tomorrow, then.” And that was it. She was leaving. Going, going…

_ Shit. Wait. _ “What's your name?” he said, raising his voice just slightly, to be heard over the grinding of coffee beans and low chatter.

The woman looked over her shoulder, eyes sparkling. “You'll have to solve that mystery yourself, John Smith,” she called back. And then she was gone.

  


It took him three days days to learn her name, and in the end, it was only because she'd accidentally left her name tag pinned on. He almost wondered if it had been an intentional choice on her part. But once he knew her name, he couldn't stop saying it. It tumbled off his lips with astounding ease and frequency in the coming days, a garden of roses springing up in the midst of carefree conversation.

“Rose,” he'd groan in mock-annoyance. “_No_, it isn't a bloody pirate swashbuckler.”

And she did the same, turning a boring name he'd always hated into the loveliest word in the world. It held the sound of her laughter, her wheedling tone — _ “Just one hint, John, would it kill you?” _ — when she plied him for information, and an endless pool of sarcasm and vivacity and humor that she carried with her, the same way she always had one paperback or another.

At first, he’d refused to tell her what the book was because he simply hadn't decided what he wanted to write about. But by the end of the first week, he’d begun to look forward to each new and outlandish guess — offered every day, over her coffee break, along with a discussion of their favorite books. Their conversations flowed so easily that it felt like he’d known her for ages, even as she surprised him at every turn.

She was staggeringly well-read, putting him to shame with her thorough knowledge of everything from the classics to comics. When he asked her about it, she just shrugged. “I like reading,” was all the explanation she saw fit to offer, along with a cheeky smile. And then she'd launch into an explanation of some genre he'd never even heard of, or he’d ramble about the highs and lows of press tours. After her break was over, he’d remain, a dazed smile on his face as he remembered their conversation and attempted to transcribe some of it for future writing endeavors. But her particular brand of cleverness was elusive, and he often found himself writing more about the expressiveness of her face or the vibrancy of her laugh instead.

A few weeks after they met was the first time she truly caught him off guard with a guess. Previously, they’d been tame, if rather inventive.

She’d rushed into the shop and immediately come to his table, rather than standing in line for her coffee and pulling silly faces while she waited, as was their usual custom. (It gave her time to gather her thoughts and think up a proper guess, she’d explained, as well as giving her time to scope out any clues he might give away.) But not today.

"Erotica."

"Pardon?"

"It's erotica," she said matter-of-factly. "That's why you don't want to tell me. You're ashamed of your smutty, self-insert supernatural vampire-werewolf slash fiction."

"I don't even know what half those words mean, I'm afraid." John sipped his coffee, eyeing the way she was currently leaning over his table. She was obviously running late today and didn't have time for their usual drink and chat, but her gaze was as bright and teasing as ever. Her hair fell in loose curls over her shoulders, and dangled out over the table. He tried to keep his gaze indirect as he added, "Sorry to disappoint you."

Rose lightly smacked the table in exaggerated annoyance. "Shite. I was really hoping for some sensual bloodletting."

"You're a terrifying woman, Rose. But you're way off. Try again."

She turned toward the door. Over her shoulder, she tossed him a grin. "See you tomorrow, John. Happy writing!"

He wasn't sure how to tell her that with every conversation they had, it seemed more and more like he was writing about her. And he didn’t notice that she left without even ordering a drink.

  


“I'm just saying that there's a market for a science fiction story that has no ‘average human’ perspective. Zero.” She laughed to herself, then continued, “Bonus points if it's written entirely in an alien language or dialect that you've invented yourself and only you understand.”

John chuckled, adjusting the angle of his mobile so he could continue scratching his thoughts onto paper. “I think you're describing _ A Clockwork Orange,_” he replied, eyes scanning over his writing.

His writing which had devolved over the course of the day, from attempts at the novel into poems.

Sonnets, in fact.

Sonnets that contained quite a bit of rose-related imagery.

He crumpled another sheet of paper and tossed it into the bin.

“Ah. Well, it was a nice thought.” He heard the vague sound of running water in the background and he wondered if she was doing the dishes. “So, what are you up to this fine evening, Mr. Smith?”

“Just… writing,” he answered. The self-imposed vagueness infuriated him, but he couldn't exactly come out and say he'd been using their conversations as inspiration. Or that he'd been up to his ears in euphemistic tripe about how her eyes and mouth and voice made him feel, despite only knowing her a few weeks. Not unless he wanted her to hang up immediately and never speak to him again.

He wasn't actually sure how they'd ended up with her calling him every evening, their phone conversations as regular as their ritual coffee dates. But one day, about a month into their daily meetings, she'd stretched out her hand and said, “Phone.”

“Why?”

“I'm getting your number, so I can send you my theories when I think of them, rather than saving them up for coffee. I'm sure I've forgotten some good ones.”

“They say you should keep a notebook for these things,” he replied, gesturing to his own moleskine, which was very much closed.

No peeking, they'd agreed. She had to guess on her own, without any help from his notes. He could give clues, but they had to come from his own head and not his outline. (At first, that had been because he hadn't had an outline. Now, it was because his outline was cluttered with snippets of their conversations and the name “Rose Tyler.”) Still, it was a rule.

He wasn't rightly certain of when they'd come up with rules either. Everything with Rose just sort of… happened. He was always being swept along by her wicked laugh and will of iron, in things before he was aware he'd jumped.

So, he’d handed over the phone, and they’d exchanged numbers, and that had been the end of it.

“John?” she was saying over the line, interrupting his thoughts. He heard a splash.

“Oh? Hm? Sorry.”

She laughed, and the sound was low. “You okay there? You seemed miles away.”

“Well, I _ am _ miles away. Opposite side of London, in fact.” He shook his head, trying to shake away the Rose-induced fog that had permeated his thoughts. “Anyway, I just had a thought. Gone now.” He cleared his throat. “I'm listening.”

“O-kay,” she said warily. “But if you have another thought, I'll understand. Inspiration works in mysterious ways.”

John rubbed a hand over his face. _ Oh, you have no idea. _

“You’ve got to seize it when you can.”

_ I wish, _his mind piped up, very much against his will.

“Anyway, I was giving your book another read and—”

He coughed out a startled laugh. “Blimey, Rose, don't you own any other books?”

“Hush, you,” she chided. “You know I do. It was one of my favorites _ long _ before I knew you, and it'll still be my favorite _ long _ after you've grown tired of my nattering and blocked this number.” Her ensuing laugh felt a bit more subdued than usual, and John felt himself listening extra intently to the silence on the end of the line.

“Rose,” he said, swallowing. “That's not gonna happen.”

“Not even if I tell everyone you're working on a dadaist poetry anthology?” Her voice was light, teasing, but not quite normal. Forced.

“No, not even then.” His voice had come out quietly, more soft than he'd intended, and he immediately wanted to take it back. _ So much for keeping it vague, you numpty, _he groaned to himself.

Luckily, Rose seemed to cheer up at his sincerity. “Well, that's good. Still, don't check Twitter.”

“I won't,” he chuckled, glad that the tension had broken. “Now, what did you want to tell me?”

“Oh, just that I think you made the wrong call with William. I mean, he read as gay to me. You should have leaned into that.”

John snorted. “Oh, really?”

“Yeah, it would have really subverted the macho, hardened detective stereotype. Plus, his relationship with his partner — what's his name again?”

“Marwen,” John supplied.

“Right. It's borderline homoerotic already. You could have gone a bit further and had a really interesting—”

“Rose,” he interrupted with an exasperated laugh. “I'm not gay.”

The line went silent for a long moment. And then he heard another small splash. She must have dropped a dish into the sink.

“Rose?”

“I mean, I wasn't really asking if you were gay or not. I just thought it would have been interesting, from a story perspective, to change the romance subplot and then it would have freed up Justine for more character development, outside of her romance with William. Or you could drop her entirely.”

“Right, but he loved Justine,” John insisted. He couldn't help the small sigh that escaped him. “That's… it's kind of the whole point. If they hadn't been in love, he never would have solved the mystery.”

“Or he would have solved it with his actual partner, Marwood—”

“Marwen.”

“—_ whatever_, instead of the random girl-next-door.”

He rolled his eyes. “She's not a ‘random girl-next-door,’ Rose. Sure, Justine works in a shop—”

“And that's all she ever is!” Rose shot back, an unexpected venom in her voice. “Outside of her romantic function, she doesn't… she isn't anyone special, she isn't even qualified to be looking into the murder. She doesn’t have a life outside of it, and who cares? She’s just there for William.”

He had no idea why Rose was suddenly dead set on disliking Justine, despite having had no apparent bias against her in their previous discussions of the book, but he did his best to defend the character he'd so lovingly crafted, years ago.

“Obviously, William thought she was clever enough to team up with, and then he liked her enough to stick around. I mean, she's got a sense of humor, and a good heart, and obviously, he thinks she's gorgeous. There a whole bloody page on when he sees her at the gala.” John took a deep breath. “She doesn't need to be, as you say, ‘special’ for him to love her.”

The line went silent again. This time, he wasn't willing to break it.

Unfortunately, it was broken by a loud splash and the sharp sound of Rose saying, “Oh, hell.”

“Rose?”

“Hang on a mo,” she said loudly, the phone clearly away from her ear. “I dropped the… ruddy… let me get you on speaker…” The sound of splashing intensified, and was followed by a stream of wild, breathless laughter. “I dropped the sodding book… in the bath… _ again_.”

John's brain short-circuited.

“Wait, you were in the bath this whole time?”

Rose's giddy laughter grew even louder. “What did you think I was doing, John? Swimming the channel?”

“I—I don't know, doing the dishes? Washing clothes?”

Incredulously, “By hand?”

“Well, I don't know! Washing your dog, then.”

Rose just barely stifled a final giggle. “I don't have a dog.”

“Well, I just didn't expect it, that's all.”

“I can see that.” She paused. Her voice had returned to normal, if perhaps tinged with amusement. “John?”

“Yeah?”

“Can I get another copy of your book?”

The laughter burst out of him then, like a bubble being popped. When he'd finally calmed down enough to speak again, he replied, “Of course, Rose. Anything for my biggest fan.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The plot isn't thickening so much as the sexual tension.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you to everyone who has left lovely feedback on the first chapter! your reassurance that pointless fluff is fun for us all has been very motivating. there will be a story at some point, i promise. unless it gets cut in editing... anyway, enjoy!

Chapter Two

It took weeks for him to get in a copy from his publisher — who had seemed bemused by his explanation that it was “for a friend in need” — and in the interim, Rose's focus on his new novel seemed to sharpen.

She still threw him the occasional wild-card guess, unwittingly introducing him to cli-fi (science fiction with an angle regarding climate change), flarf poetry (intentionally irreverent, offensive poetry), and even pitching a rather compelling concept for a hybrid Western-Dystopian novel. He loved the way she whipped ideas out of thin air, spinning tales about janitors pretending to be doctors, or time-traveling aliens, or period romances gone wrong. Most days, she was a font of egregiously implausible guesses. But when she held him with that probing look and really guessed, he had to admit she was getting closer.

His evasions had gotten more intentional, and his hints increasingly vague, to the point of near obfuscation. But he had drafted three quarters of a novel at this point, and the end sort of hinged on… well, them continuing how they were.

There was something about Rose's mind that fascinated him, spurring him to explore while he wrote. He'd previously been addicted to outlining, following his trail of story beats like a roadmap to a predestined conclusion. But Rose had a tendency to wander. When they talked, he found her thoughts to be rambling and unfocused, often difficult to follow, doubling back and dancing ahead.   


It wasn't that she was two steps ahead of him — it was that he had no idea where her next two steps would land.

And he loved it.

They'd never met outside of that bookshop, yet he felt like all of London was painted in shades of Rose. She had thoughts and opinions and ideas about every single thing, and if she didn't have an opinion, she was happy to form one. Her imagination ran rampant over cobblestone streets and fields of grass. He wanted to see her reaction to Rome, to New York City, to Tokyo — to see her face and hear the wild turning of her thoughts.

The thought stopped him in his tracks.

It wasn't just the world he wanted to show her. He wanted to see her reaction to the inside of his flat. To the tiles in his shower, to his mother's flower garden, to his childhood tree house, to the underside of his bedsheets. There wasn't, come to think of it, anything he  _ didn't _ want to share with Rose.

  
  
  


Two days after he'd given her the replacement copy of his book — in which he'd teasingly inscribed, “to my biggest fan” — Rose didn't come for coffee.

It was one thing to acknowledge how much he'd come to depend on Rose for his writing; it was another thing entirely to feel the effect of her absence. He spent their normal coffee break sitting at the usual table, hands limp on the keys, and his eyes glazed over. His coffee went cold.

That night, he rang her. He'd never done it straight away before; normally, there was texting and banter and an invitation to call. But he didn't want to risk… anything. If he'd offended her or if she was ill or if she was just tired of his company, he wanted to know for certain. With that in mind and with shaking hands, he dialed her number.

“Hello?” she answered on the second ring. Her voice sounded a bit low, and rather tired.

“Hey,” he greeted, “there you are.”

She let out a weak laugh. “Here I am.”

“I didn't see you at the shop today, so I just thought I'd—”

“Oh!” Rose exclaimed, her voice suddenly forcefully bright. “God, right. I'm sorry. I should have texted! They just… we were short-staffed, and I had to cover Lucy’s shift, so I worked through my normal breaks, and—”

“Rose,” he interrupted, “you don't need to apologize, it's fine. Really. I just wanted to… make sure everything was all right.”

Her sigh sounded so worn down that it might have been half-yawned. “Yeah, ‘m all right.” John couldn't help but smile at her accent, thickened by exhaustion.

“Good.” He took a breath, held it, let it out. “I missed you.”

He could practically hear her smile across the line, beaming like a ray of sunshine despite the late hour. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he replied. He wondered how he could be struck dumb by a smile he wasn’t even seeing.

“Bet you got lots of writing done, though, without me there to bother you.”

John chuckled, and he knew his own smile was probably just as apparent down the line. “I didn't write a word all day."

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I missed you, too.” The words felt warm in his ear and the hand holding his mobile tingled, as if with the tangible electricity of her longing. But the words didn't have time to settle before she was already off again. “I thought up this brilliant idea for your next book, actually, and I wanted to tell you, but… well, it's like I said. Work. Anyway, I think you could write a  _ brilliant _ stage-play, if you just—”

“Rose,” he interrupted again, his voice low. “You know, we don't have to talk about my writing all the time.”

Her response was automatic. “I know.”

“Do you? I mean, I know that you love books, and it's brilliant. You're… this book I'm writing wouldn't exist without all of our conversations. But… I know you have a real life — a job, friends, maybe a boyfriend—”

At that, Rose snorted. “You think I'd be calling you from the bath if I had a bloke?”

“I suppose not,” he admitted, trying not to let his amusement or the sudden rush of pleasure trickle down the line. “But my point is that… you're a complete person. And I don't want you to feel like you have to fit inside a little box labeled ‘John's Muse’ all the time.”

She went quiet for a long moment, and he almost thought she'd fallen asleep. But then she whispered, a grin evident in her voice. “Muse, huh?”

John worked his jaw for a second, a few hundred responses bubbling up. Things like  _ I don't know what you are  _ and  _ of course you are  _ and  _ can I come over so we can talk about this in person _ , but none of it came out. Instead, he said, his voice quiet, “I told you, Rose. This book wouldn't exist without you.”

“Oh.”

He wasn't sure what the word meant, coming from her mouth in that way — high-pitched, just a bit breathless.   


_ Well, there’s no time like the present to irrevocably fuck things up. _

“When you met me, you were right. There was… there was no book. Not even a concept for a book. It was just me and a blank page and a deadline looming somewhere in the future. It wasn't until we began talking that I actually began writing.”

“John, you're giving me too much credit,” Rose offered. Her voice sounded shaky now, and not from exhaustion.

He huffed out a dismayed laugh. “Actually, I'm not giving you enough credit. If you'd responded like any other person to me being such a… presumptuous arsehole, I probably wouldn't have a book right now.”

“Yeah, you were sort of a twat,” she replied, her tired voice laden with amusement. “But I'm glad that I… helped you, even a bit.”

“More than a bit,” he immediately replied. “Rose, I—”

“John?” The tone of her interruption was small, and fragile, and very unlike the Rose he’d come to known.

His mouth snapped shut. “Hm?”

“It's been a long day…”

“Of course,” he agreed, trying not to let her sudden subject change drag him down. “How thoughtless of me. You should have a cup of tea, or draw a bath, or sleep. I'm keeping you.”

“No,” she answered warmly. “I'm happy to stay on. I just… I need to get changed for bed and things. Do you mind?”

“Mind?” He cleared his throat. “Not a bit. Do… whatever it is you need to.”

Her answering chuckle was faint, as if she'd stepped away from her phone. He heard a faint thump as she set him down somewhere, and then she continued speaking to him, the volume changing as she switched to speaker.

“It's not some sort of mystery, John, we girls do all the normal things.” He could hear the smile in her voice as she listed off: “Pyjamas, toothbrush, washing off the day. Maybe a face mask if we're in the mood.”

“Dare I ask what a face mask is?” he asked, shuddering.

Her amusement came across the line. “It's a skin treatment. For wrinkles or acne or any of the other dozens of imperfections we struggle to conquer.”

“Nonsense,” John dismissed.

He heard the gentle swish of fabric, and then the light sound of it landing elsewhere in the room. He tried to visualize her bedroom — had she thrown something on a chair? in a laundry basket? on the floor? And what had it been that she'd discarded? Was it a shirt or trousers or… something else?

He swallowed.  _ This was a bad idea. _

“What was that?”

“I said it's nonsense,” he repeated. “The beauty industry is a sham.”

She snorted. “You say that, but you've never seen me without makeup on.”

“I'd like to.” The response tumbled out before he could stop it, and he instantly closed his eyes, as if bracing for impact.

“Why?”

A good question. He hadn't thought his answer through — it had just been instinctual. But how could he explain that there  _ was  _ no reasonable explanation?   


He wanted to know her, and if that meant seeing her with her makeup off, it's what he wanted. It wasn't any more or less complex than that.

“I'm not sure. I think it'd be… I dunno, interesting.”

Rose's laugh neared the phone again, and was cut off by the sound of drawers opening and closing. “Men. You all think women are so mysterious. The face behind the makeup. The body under the clothes. You think we've got layers and layers and go deeper than the ocean.” Her derisive chuckle was muffled by the sound of fabric going over her head. When she continued, her voice was clear again. “We're not that complex.”

“Maybe not,” John agreed. “But that doesn't make us understand you any better.” He waited a beat and then continued, grinning, “Anyway, who said anything about getting your clothes off?”

Her laugh was low, and sounded close. He heard the click of a light switch. He wondered what kind it was — a small lamp on her nightstand, or flood lights overhead, or a floor lamp. He couldn't build the scene in his head. All he could visualize was Rose. Rose in a featureless room.

It didn’t matter; it was still Rose he saw.

His thoughts were interrupted by her yawning voice. “Thanks for calling. I didn't mean to worry you.”

“I know you didn't,” he soothed. “I'm just glad you're alright.”

“It really was a hell of a day,” she said drowsily. “My manager had me re-staging the whole of linens, on my own.”

John couldn't help but smile. She sounded half-asleep already. “You can tell me all about it tomorrow. For now, get some sleep.”

“G’night, John,” she sighed. The sound of her breath was heavy in his ear, and he leaned into it, as if he might be able to feel its warmth.

“Goodnight, Rose.”

  
  
  


The next day — after she'd asked him if he'd been writing a Christian romance novel all along, and he very nearly said yes, just to see her expression — he asked her about her job. He could tell she hadn't expected it, just based on the subtle widening of her eyes and small furrow that appeared between her eyebrows. But he hadn't forgotten. He'd meant what he said.

He wanted to know every bit of Rose Tyler, or at least, every bit she'd share with him.

She told him that she'd worked at Henrik’s for almost five years now — since she was nineteen and paying off the debt left by a deadbeat boyfriend. There was barely a trace of bitterness when she spoke of him, but the corner of her mouth dropped a bit, and her eyes lost their shine. Whoever he'd been, he'd hurt her.

She'd paid off the debt after a year, but found that she liked the freedom that the job offered. “My mum and I never had much growing up, on the estate,” she explained, fingers tight around her mug of tea. “So at first, I just liked having the discount on things — nicer clothes, shoes that didn't fall apart after a few wears. Her first birthday after I started working there, I bought her this necklace. Even  _ with _ the discount, it was two weeks’ pay.” She smiled fondly. “But she loved it. Still does, actually. Wears it all the time.” She let out a deep breath. “For a while, that was enough.”

For a long moment, her face was drawn and her eyes wouldn't meet his. When she finally looked up at him again, her expression was guarded.

“Rose, it's alright. You can tell me, whatever it is.” He reached a hand across the table and cupped one of hers, feeling the warmth radiating from the ceramic and her skin. The smell of bergamot and lavender rose to meet him as he leaned closer.

“I know,” she said slowly. “It's just… I always felt self-conscious about it, and now it's too late to do anything about it.” Her eyes narrowed, as if assessing him. He hoped he looked open. He hoped he looked trustworthy.

He  _ hoped  _ she wasn’t about to tell him she had a kid or a terminal disease or a secret husband.

“See, I never got my A-levels. Jimmy… well, I  _ say _ he convinced me to drop out, but the truth is that I just needed an excuse.” A weak, self-deprecating laugh broke her sentence; it was a sound John hadn't heard from her before, and it twisted his heart. “I was always bad in school. It's all the sitting, I think. You know me, I can read just about anything, but I can't… I hated classrooms and teachers and rooms with no windows and tests. So, when he said, ‘Drop out, luv, I'll support you. Me an’ the band’ll make it big,’ I did. I just… trusted him. I was an idiot.”

“You were a teenager,” John insisted.

“Old enough to put my name on a lease,” she shot back. “Old enough to know when a man's cheating. And certainly old enough to know that a broken wrist can't be fixed with an apology.” She swallowed, and her head ducked again beneath his gaze. “I was stupid, and I know it. There's nothing for it now.”

He tried to tamp down the knot of gnawing rage that had formed in his stomach at the thought of her with a broken wrist, in a cast, unable to wrap her hand around a mug the way she was doing this very moment. He couldn't imagine Rose depending on anything or anyone. He couldn't imagine what kind of man could get Rose to fall in love with him, and then  _ hurt  _ her.   


“You could sit for your A-levels,” he offered, trying to keep his voice relaxed. “You're smart enough.” The words felt useless, even as he said them. The resignation on her face told him all he needed to know.

Rose shrugged. “I’d have to go back to school, and there’s no way I could work enough to keep up the flat. I’d back back in those classrooms all over again, with teachers… breathing down my neck, looking at me oddly because I’m older. Anyway, I don't suppose it much matters now. I've got my job, and it pays for my flat and food and a new book every few weeks. Not a bad life.”

John squeezed her hand. “But there's no shame in wanting more.” She opened her mouth to protest, but he didn't let her. “We don't need to discuss it now. Or ever, if you don't want. I just want you to know that… it's not naive or foolish to want a better life.”

Her answering smile was small as she said, voice barely more than a whisper, “Thanks, John.”

“What for?” he asked, his brow wrinkling in confusion.   


“Listening. My life's not half so interesting as your novel’s bound to be — and not half so much like a gothic horror.” Her expression widened to a grin, tongue poking out between her teeth. “Which, by the way, you're absolutely writing. Yesterday’s hint gave you away.”

“Did it?”

“Oh, yes,” she teased. “I see right through you.”

John tried to smile. _ I certainly hope not. _


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some backstory, some bedsharing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for sticking with me and my inconsistent update schedule! enjoy! also, next chapter we'll be approaching some plot, i promise.

Chapter Three 

By the end of the week, their conversations had begun to diverge wildly from the usual book-related banter. Parries and blows turned into slower discussions that would continue in spurts all day — a text here or there, and of course, their usual coffee date — and linger long into the night.

John learned that Rose wasn't just observant when it came to clues in mystery novels; she had a keen eye for design and an inherent desire to express herself visually. He’d never have guessed based on her standardized work outfits that she had a passion for aesthetics. But he should have known. She was as ruthless in her dissection of cover art as she was in discussion of the stories themselves. Rose saw the world around them with the eye of an artist.

The scraping of wood against a hard floor made John cringe and stop his rambling about chapter transitions. “Rose,” he sighed, shifting his phone, “_ what _ are you doing?”

“Redecorating,” she said cheerfully.

“Redecorating.”

“Yep,” she replied, popping the ‘p.’ “I was reading this book on _ feng shui _ last week, right? And I worked out why I can't get any decent sleep. My bed is under the slope of the ceiling, which creates pressure — bad _ qi _.”

“Right.” He couldn't keep the confusion out of his voice.

Rose sighed. “It's energy, John. _ Qi _ is energy.”

“I know what _ qi _ is, Rose,” he chuckled. “It's just that it's two in the morning and you have neighbors.”

“Not like they let _ me _ get any sleep,” she muttered irritably. “At it like rabbits, those two.”

His lips twitched in amusement. “Are you sure _ that's _ not why you can't sleep?”

“Well,” Rose huffed, “I can't do anything about my randy neighbors. However,” she grunted, and there was a particularly loud scrape that made John wince, “I _ can _ move my bed.”

“Doesn't sound like it. Do you need help?”

“John, you're twenty minutes away,” Rose laughed.

“So’s the nearest A and E,” John answered reasonably, “which is where I'll be coming to visit you if you break your back moving that bed.”

“You'd visit me?” Rose said, grin evident in her voice. Based on the following huff, he assumed she'd just plopped down on her bed. “That's sweet of you.”

“Well, this ending isn't gonna write itself. I can't exactly do without you at this point.” _ Understatement of the century, _he groaned to himself. “But if your jaw is wired shut, I'll probably stop visiting,” he joked.

“Y’know, it would be a lot easier if you just _ told _me what you were writing,” Rose coaxed. This was a familiar line of questioning, and he rolled his eyes. “I could help you more, be more specific with my suggestions.”

He needed to cut this off before he caved, because her voice was taking on that tone that always made him feel fuzzy in the head. So he took a breath. “Rose?”

“Hm?”

“What's your address?”

  
  


“Blimey,” John grunted, shifting the bed an inch to the left. “It's a wonder this thing doesn't drop through the floor.”

Rose giggled. “Bit heavy, yeah. It’s an antique.”

She collapsed back on the bed, arms and legs spread like she was planning on making an angel in the snow-white comforter. She certainly looked like an angel, with her sunny blonde hair fanned out and her wide, satisfied grin. “Thanks, John,” she sighed happily. “I know I'll sleep like a baby tonight.” When she glanced over at her clock, she snorted. “What's left of it, anyway.”

“I'm pretty sure that'll be from the heavy lifting, not the good _ feng shui _,” he answered, ignoring her narrowed eyes and the way she childishly stuck out her tongue. But he wasn't entirely able to ignore the laugh that threatened to spread over her lips. “But it does look quite nice, having the bed over here.”

“Thanks. I think so, too.”

A silence fell — the kind that only comes past three in the morning, between people who have no reason to still be together, but can't bring themselves to part.

“You can sit down,” Rose invited, patting the bed beside her outstretched arm. “You earned it. Or I could put on tea.”

John waved an arm in dismissal, instead sinking down onto the plush mattress that reached up to embrace his aching back. He let out a little groan of appreciation. “This mattress. I _ love _ this mattress.”

“Henrik’s discount.” He couldn't see Rose's smile, but he could hear it. “I splurged last Christmas.”

“Brilliant,” he breathed, his eyes fluttering closed.

“I could sell you one,” she laughed. “Give you the friends and family discount.”

“I'd like that.”

"Maybe redecorate your whole flat while I'm at it."

John snorted. "I'm in no need of decorating. My flat's fine the way it is."

"Oh?" she shot back. "I bet your walls are primed, but haven't been painted since the landlord last redecorated — no color, dingy white. And I bet you've got no curtains at all, just blinds." Her voice sounded triumphant as she continued. "And I bet you've got no bedframe… just a box-spring, and probably… gray sheets. Am I right?"

His eyes shifted over to her in suspicion. "Have you been to my flat?" he joked.

She chuckled. "Nah. I just know men."

"Ah."

Another silence fell, more comfortable, and accompanied by the night sounds of the city, which came in through her cracked-open window. It was a cool evening, almost unseasonably so; the early summer breeze slipped in and ruffled the curtains. He was certain he could fall asleep here, just like this — trainers on and everything.

But he didn't let himself. Instead, his eyes drifted around the flat, taking in the space he’d never quite been able to visualize. In the far corner, the tub she’d dropped his book in, more than once. Just across Rose’s body, the bedside table, where she’d fallen asleep with him still on the line. “How long have you lived here?” he asked conversationally, hoping she'd keep him awake (and sane) with some of her chatter.

“Oh, ‘bout a year. My first flat was a dump and the landlord was…” She snorted inelegantly. “Well, let's just say he had wandering hands and I wasn't interested, so I moved here.”

“It's a nice place.” _ God, when did my grasp on the English language just… abandon me? _ John privately lamented. _ How does she reduce me to the conversational level of a turnip? _ “Good bones,” he added weakly.

He heard the swivel of her head, the brush against the fabric as she sat up and looked down at him. Her eyes were amber in the low light. “I thought so, too. ‘Specially for a studio. When I first moved in, though, it looked like… absolute shit.” She gestured to the room around them, all brightly-painted walls and polished hardwood. “Sort of like your place, actually," she added amusedly. "Washed out. Peeling paint. Carpet coming up, and the cobwebs! Cobwebs everywhere,” she said with a shuddering laugh. “I _ hate _ spiders. But I found a way to make it livable. Tore up the carpet. Scraped off a few layers of paint and some truly monstrous wallpaper. Opened the windows, let a little light in. Took a while before I had enough furniture to make it homey, and most of it is second-hand, but I love everything I chose. It's not a bad place now.”

John stayed still. Waited. Looked up at Rose Tyler's full mouth and wistful glance. Wished it was directed at him.

“Not everywhere has good bones like this place does,” she added quietly. “On the estate, everything is made cheap. Nothing is meant to last, because it doesn't matter. People are in and out, coming and going, living and dying. And my mum,” her eyes darted down to his and then back up again, “she did the best she could, I think. But she never had much to work with. There were no… reclaimed oak tables, no memory foam mattresses… she'd no idea what a thread count _ was _ or what it meant.”

Rose shrugged uneasily, tension rolling off of her shoulders, but he could see the smile trying to bloom beneath. “But she tried. Our flat… John, you'd laugh to see it. Everything's so colorful and bright — much more than here. My bedroom was full of hot pink everything. I mean _ everything _.” She giggled. “It was an eyesore, but it made me happy. Mum’s the same way — always testing new colors on the walls, always a throw pillow to brighten up a second-hand sofa. She prioritized making our house a home. A messy, cluttered home made of particle board, but a home.” She swallowed. “Not everyone gets that. I was lucky.”

“Your mum sounds brilliant,” John offered.

Rose's answering smile was wide. “She is. She was the one who got me interested in interior design, you know? Said I should go back to school, turn it into a business. Make something of myself. I blew that, I guess.”

John's own smile faded. “Rose, you're twenty-four. It's not too late to finish your A-levels, go back to school, study design like you want to.”

“Yeah? And when did you publish your first novel, then?” She eyed him, gaze sceptical.

“My twenties,” he hedged, “but that doesn't mean anything. I was still in school for engineering then, and writing at night.”

Rose laid back down, this time on her side, head resting in her hand. “I didn't know you studied to be an engineer.”

“I didn't,” John chuckled. “I got pissed every night and wrote until dawn. Thought I was Ernest _ bloody _ Hemingway.” He rolled his eyes at that vision of his younger self, three sheets to the wind and tearing his hair out because his real-life Justine wasn't speaking to him. “I ended up graduating with a literature degree, because it was the only thing I'd managed to scrape enough credits to switch into. My father was _ furious _. Both of my brothers are… well, let’s say they both ended up with doctorates.”

Rose let out a little laugh. “Oh, God, I can’t believe it. John Smith, the starving artist. I bet you were hungover on graduation day.” Her gaze was focused wholly on him as she confirmed, “Ha! You were. Do you even remember it, or is it all a bit hazy in there?” She reached over and tapped his head. He tried not to think too much about the feeling of her hand in his hair.

“I remember,” he defended, lightly slapping the offending digits away. “Just… not with any particular fondness. Or clarity.”

Rose's eyes were sparkling. “I can't imagine you at university. I think you must have been born a bitter forty-year-old man.”

He couldn't help rolling his eyes at that. “Rose, I'm thirty-five.”

“Really,” she said innocently. “I'd’ve thought older.”

“Right, so I look shorter _ and _ older than you expected. Anything else?”

She nodded matter-of-factly. “Mhm. You're much kinder.” She said it with such warmth that it took all he had to reach out and grip her hand, just so he could reassure himself that she was real.

Her words coaxed a grin to his face. “I’m starting to believe you’re telling falsehoods, Rose Tyler. There’s no chance you picked all of that up just from a black-and-white headshot in the back of a novel.”

“I didn’t,” she insisted, “I got it all from your characters. William is so jaded on the surface, but then… he's a hopeless romantic underneath it all? The way he pines after Justine, but she never knows, because he treats her with the same dignified disdain he shows everyone? I mean, there’s just no way you could’ve written it all without feeling _ some _ of it.” He hadn’t realized he’d been glancing away until she nudged him with her elbow. “C’mon, John. Spill it. Who’s your Justine?”

“You’re too perceptive by half,” he griped in response, unwilling to face her question head-on. Instead, he clapped his hand over his face. “It’s embarrassing.”

“That just means you _ have _to tell me.” He could hear the giggle building in Rose’s voice, threatening to escape and transform into a full-scale teasing laugh if he didn’t concede.

“Fine,” he replied, looking up at her. “But keep in mind that I was very young.”

"Younger than me?"

"Hush, you."

Rose rolled over onto her stomach, chin resting on her fists, and eyes glittering. It was clear that he held her entire attention. He absently wondered what time it was before deciding that he didn’t care, if it meant she’d look at him like that all night.

“Her name was Sophie,” he finally admitted. “She was a year above me, and brilliant. I mean, a _ proper _ genius, and she had the test scores to prove it. I met her because I’d failed an exam — some engineering class, and she was the TA.”

When he glanced shyly over at Rose, she wiggled her eyebrows. “I’m sure she was more than happy to… tutor you privately.”

Her tongue flicked out from between her teeth, and John took a steadying breath, trying to refrain from blushing. “You could say that.”

Rose squealed at the obvious acknowledgement. “And how was _ that _ ? I bet your… marks went _ right _ up, didn’t they?”

“Do you want to hear the story or not?” he shot back, his cheeks earnestly red by now.

She nestled deeper into the comforter with an enthusiastic wiggle, her smile so wide that he was certain it’d fly off her face. She was being immensely distracting, but didn’t seem to notice. Instead, she let the burst of energy flood through her as a giggle, and then tried to compose herself in an attitude of seriousness. “Sorry,” she conceded. “I’ll listen, I promise. You’re the storyteller, after all.”

“Right.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, like I was saying… oh, sod it, yes.” He spoke in a rapid stream, trying to skip forward as quickly as possible. “Yes, she did tutor me and yes, I absolutely fell arse over teakettle for her, because she was gorgeous and impressive and stoic and I couldn’t get a read on her, and we ended up dating for two years.”

Rose laughed in dismay. “Two years? Blimey. I can’t keep a bloke two months.” John shot her a fake glare, to which she rapidly replied, “Sorry, sorry. Shutting up.”

“Sophie graduated and was taking a gap year while I was finishing my novel, and my final year of school. It’d become clear at that point that I wasn’t cut out for engineering, and despite the fact that I was with the most brilliant girl who’d ever been in the program, I wasn’t improving. But she…” Here his brow wrinkled as he tried not to sink too deeply into memory. “She was always very encouraging, about my writing. I can’t say she _ understood _ why I did it, but she read every chapter. Her feedback was… I can’t tell you how helpful. Without it, the manuscript wouldn’t have been fit to be read by the lowest intern at the very worst publishing house. She was always very… detail-oriented.” He grimaced. “And I wasn’t a very good writer back then. I’m not convinced I’m any good now, either, but that’s not the point.”

Rose took a breath as if she wanted to speak up, but when John narrowed his eyes, she mimed zipping her lips. And she smiled, presumably to be encouraging.

“I was nearly done with the first draft — just needed to wrap up a few scenes — when our anniversary came ‘round. I wanted to do something… romantic, you know, to thank her for all of her help. And she’d been busy, too, applying for graduate programs. We’d been… drifting a bit, lately. So, I surprised her.”

He looked over at Rose. There it was — the knowing sadness, already lurking in her eyes. He had to look away.

“Train tickets,” he sighed. “To Paris. She hadn’t been since she was a child, so I thought… well, I thought it’d be nice for her. For us. A nice break from real life.” His hand flew back up to his face, rubbing tiredly at his eyes. He suddenly felt much older than even Rose had guessed he was.

“I should’ve known. Sophie wasn’t much for surprises. Engineer, you know, and stunningly organized. I’d just booked a ticket and a room in a hotel, and thought we could work it out from there.”

He wasn’t sure when he’d started looking to Rose for comfort, for confirmation that he’d done the right thing — a kind, thoughtful thing — but he was now. Looking at her, with her honey-gold eyes, which gazed back at him with hopeful encouragement. “Go on,” she whispered.

“It was awful. We fought the whole time, and I understand why. She’d always had anxieties — needed to be in control, needed a plan. Me, I’m a bit more…”

“Free-spirited?” Rose prompted, when he’d struggled too long over finding a word.

“Impulsive.”

“Ah.” Then she dutifully went back to quiet listening.

“It was a nightmare. We waited hours in line to get in places that she didn’t even want to go. We wandered around, caught the wrong train, missed more than a few meals due to my carelessness. When we got back, we realized that she and I were just… too different.” He puffed out a breath. “The breakup was mutual, but painful. We’d settled in together, wound our lives together. Half of our belongings were in the other’s flat, and we shared nearly all our friends. And of course, I almost threw out the book a dozen times after we broke it off; Sophie’s hand was all over it, she was essentially my model for Justine, and I couldn’t write an ending I liked. After a few months of nagging from my agent, I just… threw something together and sent it off to her so she could pass it off to a few publishers. And then I got absolutely pissed for an entire week.” He glanced over at Rose again, who hadn’t looked away from him once. “It’s why I was hungover at graduation.” She winced.

“It’s also why Justine and William never really get any closure,” he explained with a sigh. “I was heartbroken and bitter and couldn’t bring myself to give it to them.” He shrugged, his shirt sighing against the soft fabric of her comforter. When he breathed in, the air around him smelled like she always did — like earl grey tea and burnt sugar, and it soothed him. He tried to infuse his voice with some cheer, adding, “But it turns out people like ambiguity — letting their imagination do the work. And it also turns out that we — Sophie and I — were _ so _ much better off apart.”

Rose arched an eyebrow and gestured to her own lips. “So, am I allowed to speak freely again?”

“Yes, ma’am,” John answered with a small smile.

But her gaze was serious. “Why do you think that story’s embarrassing?”

“Oh, I dunno,” he shrugged again. “I made this big, stupid romantic gesture and it went totally awry? Also, I’m a top-shelf idiot who barely graduated uni because he was _ sad _?”

“But that’s not stupid,” Rose argued, distress all over her face. “That’s… it _ is _ romantic, and sweet, and thoughtful to surprise someone with a trip to Paris. And of _ course _ you’d be upset over breaking off a two year relationship, especially at a moment that should have been happy for you. None of it’s silly at all — it’s…” But she didn’t finish, instead she shook her head abruptly. “It’s _ not _silly.” She pronounced it like it was a simple fact that he had no choice but to agree with.

“If you say so.”

She nodded. “I do. Listen to the muse,” she said, pointing to herself. “She knows what makes a good story.”

John rolled his eyes. “I should never have let that slip; it went straight to your head.”

“Oh, it absolutely did,” she answered with an impish grin.

When he finally glanced back at the clock, it was nearing five. “It’s late. Or early, depending.”

Rose hummed her agreement and laid her head down on her arms, as if nestling in for a night’s sleep. “Far too early to be awake. We should sleep in.”

That drew a laugh. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I’ll do that, just as soon as I get back to my flat.”

Rose made a dismissive noise, muffled by her face being buried in her own arms. “Nonsense. I have a sofa.” She waved her arm in the vague direction of the living area, which wasn’t far from her bed in the small studio. There was a small couch there — barely more than a loveseat. He knew there was no way he’d be able to lay across it without his knees being up by his chin.

“Rose, exactly how tall do you think I am?”

“I dunno,” she huffed. “Too tired for maths. Let me sleep.”

“Alright,” he said with a sigh, grunting as he began to pull himself upright. Lord, but he was sore. That bed really _had_ been heavy.

But before he could really put his back into it, Rose’s hand darted out and grabbed his arm. The warmth of her small hand radiated through his thin shirt, freezing him where he was. “John,” she sighed, still face down. “Really. ‘S fine.” Her face turned to the side, peeking out to look at him. She blinked drowsily, and then grinned. “You moved the bed, anyway; you ought to sleep in it, too.”

But he hesitated.

“John,” she repeated, her voice firm. “I trust you.”

The sentence cut through all of his arguments, and warmed him from the inside.

“Alright.” He leaned over and kicked off his trainers, then slid off his glasses. Slowly, he eased over top of Rose to set them on her bedside table and click off the lamp. He moved as if any reminder of his presence might prompt her to send him away, but she didn’t so much as flinch, even when his chest brushed against her back. When he lay back down, her eyes were firmly closed, a small smile on her lips that he could barely make out in the moonlight. Both of them were on top of the bedspread and inappropriately dressed for sleep, but neither seemed to care.

“G’night, Rose,” he whispered.

“G’night.”

  
  


Three weeks later, the draft of his book was finished.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another cozy night in for our lovebirds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the wait, y'all. life gets in the way. but remember how i said we'd get to plot this time? i meant... next time... oops.  
(also, let it be known that i listened to hozier's "work song" on repeat while writing the entirety of this chapter. it's really the only excuse i have. that and... well, you'll see.)  
as usual, please forgive my mistakes.

Chapter Four

He hadn't expected anything to change once he'd finished the initial draft, but it did. Then again, the absence of his book-related stress had almost nothing to do with the sudden change to his routine.

No, that change had come half an hour after he'd sent off the document, in the form of Rose walking into the shop, beaming like she carried the sun on the tip of her tongue.

“What's got you so cheery?” he asked, finding a smile rising to meet hers. She was always like that — spreading her sunshine.

“Oh, nothing,” she answered vaguely, failing at the appearance of placidity. As she dropped into her seat, she added, “Only I'm going to apply to a design program.” It was said so casually that John almost missed the impact.

Almost.

“Rose!” he burst out, hardly able to keep his seat. “That's… that’s fantastic!” He wanted to reach across the table and drag her into a hug, but settled for gripping her hand in his own, nearly spilling his coffee in the process.

“Thanks,” she demurred, running a thumb over his knuckles unconsciously. He was unable to stop his other hand from wrapping around hers, so her fingers were sandwiched between his. He squeezed.

“What made you change your mind?”

“I just…” Her eyes drifted up to meet his, and if he hadn't been sitting, the intensity in them would have bowled him over. “I decided I wanted more.”

“Yeah?” he beamed.

“Yeah.”

“Good.”

  
  


Once Rose made up her mind to do something, she went all in. John hadn't been sure what to expect, but it certainly wasn't the way she threw herself into her school search with an intensity that made him ashamed of his lazy, binge-drinking uni years.

She took it all immensely seriously; she bought a day planner, which she showed him with great pride, and it contained both her unwavering work schedule and her application windows for various programs. She seemed determined to enroll in time for autumn term, and therefore had given herself only a few months to find and join a program. But she seemed to handle it all with grace and determination and that Rose Tyler spine of steel.

Mostly. At first.

John had known the phone call was coming, because by two weeks into this new schedule, he’d come to understand the patterns of Rose Tyler. She had a rhythm that she invariably followed: she'd set a goal, work toward it at a reasonable pace, get in far too deep, try to balance the goal with her other responsibilities, exhaust and overwhelm herself, and then — to the best of his understanding — she'd freak the hell out.

Tonight, it appeared, was _ freak the hell out _ night.

“I don't understand any of this, John,” she was saying, voice clipped. Their usual nightly phone call had a frenetic energy to it, and he could feel Rose's tension in every word. “I’m supposed to include an essay and a list of previous experience; how the hell am I supposed to even _ have _ previous experience?” Rose practically hissed the curse, and he nearly winced back from the phone at her venom. “I’m not sure I’m even cut out for this. I’m not academic, I’m not a writer! I don’t even have my A levels!” The last words came out at a near shout, and this time, he actually did cringe away from the screen of his mobile.

“I'm sorry,” he began, his tone as placating has he could manage. “But it's late. You don't need to do this tonight.”

“Then when _ will _ it get done?” she shot back, still at a volume entirely at odds with the late hour. He was sure her neighbors were furious with her by now. First, redecorating, and now a few weeks of _ this _ .

“It can wait until tomorrow.”

“But _ when _ tomorrow?” she bemoaned. “I work open to close! I can't exactly take the day off because I need to — what, fill out applications for snobby intern programs that don’t want a girl off the estate?”

He was certain she was on the verge of tears, so desperately, he offered, “I can help you. Tomorrow, at coffee.”

Rose groaned out a laugh. “You're a novelist who failed all his uni courses! What do _ you _ know?”

“I think I can manage a letter of introduction,” John answered, unable to keep the defensive tone out of his voice. “I'm not a _ complete _ idiot.”

“Oh, and I _ am _?”

“No! No.” He huffed out a sigh and dropped his head to the kitchen table with a thunk. His voice bounced back at him as he spoke at the wood. “I just… I _ meant… _ I'm sure that I remember some of what I did when I was applying for universities, and I can help you. If you want. If that's… if it means you won't spend all night beating yourself up.”

There was a long pause, and he held his breath, hoping she wouldn't get _ more _ angry.

She let out a puff of air and then said, “John, I can't. It's… that’s the one part of my day where I can actually relax, think about something other than work and rent and school and I don't want to spoil it with… _ applications _.” She spat the word like she couldn't bear tasting it.

That made him chuckle, and he found himself sitting upright again, and saying, “Well, we'll just have to make up for it tonight, then.”

_ Wait. What does that mean? _

“What do you mean?”

_ Good question. _He scrambled for an answer.

“I mean, you should relax. Not think about any of those things — school or work or rent or global warming or...” He had no idea where he was going with this. “We'll do it all tonight, so we can focus on applications tomorrow.”

“But—”

“Rose,” he cut her off, voice surprisingly firm. “Listen to me, love, I know what I'm about.” _ Liar. _But somehow, he sounded infinitely more confident than he felt. “You’ll be no good to anyone if you spend all night climbing the walls. Let me help you relax.”

Another pause.

“Alright,” she conceded.

He hadn't expected her to give in. In fact, he'd _ expected _ her to shout him right off the line for trying to boss her around and patronizing her with pet names. But instead, she sounded almost docile.

She was _ relieved _.

“Brilliant,” he soothed. “So, we're going to do the most relaxing things possible, so you can get some sleep and feel refreshed in the morning. Alright?”

He thought she might argue, but instead she just said, “What did you have in mind?”

He hadn't exactly thought that far ahead. He hadn't been thinking at all. But somehow, he managed to say, “A bath. You're going to get a book, and you're going to draw a bath.”

When he spoke, his voice held an assurance that he wasn't sure came from him. But it seemed to fool Rose well enough.

He could hear her smile as she asked, “Any book recommendations?” He heard the sound of the tap in the background — a sound he'd never mistake for anything else, ever again.

His eyes darted over to his “currently reading” stack, which was an eclectic mix of genres — hardbacks and paperbacks, cheap pulp fiction and academic texts — and picked a title at random.

“_ Leaves of Grass. _ Whitman,” he clarified. “If you have it.”

She hesitated, and when she spoke, sounded genuinely sorrowful. “I don't.”

“Ah, well…”

“But you could read it to me.”

He swallowed. “Oh. Yes, I suppose I could.”

“Probably be more relaxing that way,” she added nonchalantly, unaware of his tension. “No eye strain. And that way I can light candles.”

“Ah. Yes. Candles.”

_ Say something sensible, you dunce. _

“And you could do one of those mask things you're always on about, too.”

He felt her tongue-touched smile over the line; it was a tangible presence, hovering right in his ear, and he wanted to drown himself in her glorious bath right that very second. “You're really quite determined to get me relaxed, aren't you?” she teased.

“It's in the interest of your education,” he protested, but she shushed him.

“Shh. Let me pretend it's because it's because you're just a nice guy.”

“I am a nice guy!”

“No, you're a twat,” Rose chuckled. “But a very kind twat with a lovely speaking voice, so keep at it, if you don't mind. It _ is _ quite relaxing.”

“Fine. So,” he began, retrieving the paperback from where it sat, and settling down into his armchair. _ Might as well relax, too, _ he thought, _ seeing as this might be a long night. _“Whitman.”

“I'm familiar. We did some of his stuff for school.”

“Then I won't bore you with the introduction,” he decided, flipping to a dog-eared poem somewhere in the middle. His voice was a bit nervous as he prompted, “Ready?”

She hummed in agreement, and he heard the creak of the faucet as she turned the tap off. “Mhm.”

He began.

“_ I celebrate myself, and sing myself, and what I assume you shall assume, for every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you _ ,” he spoke steadily, mouth turning over the familiar words. “ _ I loafe and invite my soul. I lean and loafe at my ease, observing a spear of summer grass _.”

Try as he might, his focus on the text wavered the second he heard the sound of fabric hitting hardwood.

“Go on,” Rose prompted, her voice sounding distant.

He cleared his throat. “_ My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this soil, this air, born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same, I, now thirty-seven years old, in perfect health begin, hoping to cease not till death... _” The heat of London summer seeped in through the walls with every sentence.

Another small sound, as more fabric fell.

“_ Creeds and schools in abeyance, retiring back a while, sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten. I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard, nature without check, with original energy _.”

The padding of footsteps. “Just getting a glass of wine, be right back. Speak up, please!”

He obeyed, raising his voice slightly. He was able to track her movements through the flat as he spoke, based on her light footsteps and the sound of cupboards. “_ Houses and rooms are full of perfumes, the shelves are crowded with perfumes. I breathe the fragrance myself and know it and like it. The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it. _”

There came a pair of splashes, and he could practically see one foot, then the other, stepping into the deep claw-foot tub. _ Stop it, stop it, stop it. _

_ God damn you, why did you pick Whitman? _he demanded of his subconscious, which was very much occupied in remembering the shape of Rose's bath.

“_ The atmosphere is not a perfume, it has no taste of the distillation, it is odorless. It is for my mouth forever, I am in love with it _ .” His own mouth felt a bit dry as he continued, striving to keep his tone even. In the background, he heard the light splashes, indicating water accommodating a body. “ _ I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked. I am mad for it to— _”

His reading was interrupted by a low hum, bordering on a moan.

“Rose?”

“Hm?” she answered drowsily.

“Alright?”

She let out another contented sigh. “'Course. Why?”

“Just checking.”

“'S lovely,” she murmured. “I think this is the best idea you've ever had.”

He rumbled out a laugh. “I'm glad you think so. Shall I continue?”

“Mm,” she answered. It was vague, but likely as much confirmation as he'd get, knowing how worn out she was. He felt a pulse of satisfaction, that he'd helped wind her down enough to enjoy this bath rather than feeling guilty about it.

He read to her for a while after that — he couldn't tell how long. Page after page passed in what felt like moments; he intermittently heard the sound of the tap going again, presumably to re-heat the water she soaked in, and the gentle clink of her wine glass being picked up and set down on the side of the tub.

He found himself relaxing as he read, too, finding a second-hand tranquility in Rose's occasional hums of approval or agreement.

“_ Loafe with me on the grass, loose the stop from your throat. Not words, not music or rhyme I want, not custom or lecture, not even the best. Only the lull I like, the hum of your valvèd voice _.”

Rose's chuckle stopped him in his recitation, a smile creeping over his lips. “What?”

“_ The hum of your valvèd voice _,” she repeated back to him. “Just seems appropriate.”

“For what?”

“For _ you _. You should read books,” she said. Her voice was quite distracted and he heard the splash of her shifting in the water. “Record them. You'd make a killing.”

“You think so?”

“I know so.”

“It's a thought.” When no additional comment seemed forthcoming, he continued. “_ I mind how once we lay such a transparent summer morning. How you settled your head athwart my hips and gently turn’d over upon me, and parted the shirt from my bosom-bone, and plunged your tongue to my bare-stript heart—” _

His reading was once again interrupted by a laugh. “Am I amusing you?”

Rose's giggles were confirmation. “I don't remember Whitman being this randy!”

“No, neither did I,” he muttered, more to himself. “But I suppose it comes with a fixation on the natural world — you learn to be attentive to your own body.”

“Or maybe,” she countered amusedly, “he was just a very lonely man with a very vivid imagination.”

“On behalf of lonely men everywhere, I'd like to offer the defense that we're not _ all _ perverts.”

He heard the sound of her sipping her wine again, and wondered how much she'd poured for herself. Either it was a very large glass, or she was drinking it rather slowly.

He wondered if it was red or white. Dry or sweet. What it tasted like, and if it stained her lips.

_ Not a pervert, you say. _

But Rose blessedly interrupted his thoughts. “He's not sex-crazed or perverted, I don't think,” she said thoughtfully. “He's just… very honest about his need for deep, emotional contact — even as he intentionally denies himself human connection, to be… one with nature, or his craft, or whatever it is he's trying to commune with. And anyway,” she said, voice suddenly teasing, “_ you're _ not lonely, are you? After all, there's me.”

“Ah, yes, a madwoman hell-bent on driving herself to destruction over design programs.” He rolled his eyes, letting the book fall into his lap. It was apparent they were done reading for the time being.

“That's not a fair judgment. I'm much more interesting than that!”

“Of course you are,” he conceded with an indulgent laugh. “You're brilliant, and we both know it, and I'm very lucky to have you.” He wasn't sure he'd ever said a truer thing in his entire life.

Except, maybe, for the part where he “had her.” Because that was an unquestionable falsehood.

“Mm,” she hummed in agreement, the sound buzzing through his chest. “Quite right, too.”

There was more vague splashing. And then a sigh. “What is it, Rose?”

“I'm out of wine,” she whinged.

He chuckled. “Would you like me to take a bus over and get it for you?”

“Ooh, that would be _ lovely _, thanks ever so.” She was smiling, and he could just about see the way it looked in the candlelight, if closed his eyes. Which he did. “Mind getting me a towel, too? It's across the flat. And more bubbles, if you don't mind. Mine have all gone.”

“You're quite demanding, aren't you?”

“Oh, you've _ no _ idea.” Her voice was wicked.

Distractingly so.

Silence fell over the line, and John hated being the one to break it. “It's late, Rose, and you've got work in the morning. You should sleep.”

“You should, too, Mr. _ Insomnia is Part of My Creative Process _ .” Her voice was still teasing, and John felt like they might be on the verge of something dangerous if he didn't get her into bed. _ Into bed and asleep, _he corrected.

“I'll sleep if you sleep,” he offered, suddenly wanting to give in to the soft support of his favorite chair and let dreams take him. His eyes remained closed.

“Alright then, have it your way.” She made a vague groan of disappointment as she lifted up from the tub and stepped out onto the floor. He heard her pull the plug, the whoosh of water down the pipe, and then the sticky sound of damp footsteps. “I'm dripping all over this nice hardwood, you know,” she said, her grumpiness not entirely able to hide the innuendo.

John snorted. “And that's my fault?”

“Haven't you realized? It's always your fault.”

“What is?”

“Everything!” she exclaimed, and then there was a thump. “Oops.”

“Did you stub your toe? That's karma.”

“I blame you for that, too,” she pouted. “This is why I need a man about. So I can blame him for things.”

“I'm happy to take the blame,” John replied, unable to stop smiling. When had a poetry reading devolved into pointless flirting? And why was he enjoying it so much? “Did you find your towel?”

“Mhm,” she acknowledged. “It's so soft. I love it. It's my favorite thing.”

That was when it dawned on him. “Rose Tyler, you're pissed.”

“Tipsy,” she said defensively.

“Pissed,” he corrected. “You're flirting with me!”

She scoffed. “I'm always flirting with you.”

“Really?” He couldn't help but be genuinely surprised by this revelation, though he wasn't sure why. Rose had always had a teasing, vivacious energy to her that could or could not have been flirtation, depending.

“You're thick,” she pronounced, the ‘k’ sticking heavily on her tongue. “Cute, but thick.”

“So, now I'm short, old, cute, thick,_ and _ a twat?” he listed off.

“Memory like an elephant,” came the answer, huffed out with a low _ oof _ as she fell into bed. “I take it back. You're not thick. You're just very, very male.”

“Oh, you've _ no _ idea,” he parroted back.

“Shut up and let me sleep,” she groaned, and then changed tack abruptly. “Ooh, or better! Read to me and let me sleep.”

“More Whitman, then?”

“Mm, yes… he's lovely.”

He grinned. “I'll tell him you said so.” He picked up his book and continued from where he'd left off. “Right, we were just about… ah, yes, ‘bare-stript heart.’ _ And reach'd till you felt my beard, and reach'd till you held my feet. Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and knowledge that pass all the argument of the earth, and I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own, and I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own… _”

Rose made a small noise of encouragement, which sounded faint and was accompanied by the click of a light switch. For a moment, he was struck by the image of his glasses, sitting peacefully on her bedside table, and it crushed his heart with a sensation that felt very much like longing.

“_ And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the women my sisters and lovers, and that a kelson of the creation is love… _”

He read for as long as he could keep his eyes open. He read to her long after he knew she must be asleep, letting his words drift into a room she wasn't really in anymore. He read to her line after line of adoring words.

“_ For me lips that have smiled, eyes that have shed tears. For me children and the begetters of children. Undrape! you are not guilty to me, nor stale nor discarded. I see through the broadcloth and gingham whether or no, and am around, tenacious, acquisitive, tireless, and cannot be shaken away _ ,” and then, when he felt like the ache in his body would overwhelm him, he stopped.

He closed the book, turned out the light, and he went to bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shout out to everyone else who would die to hear eight's dulcet tones reading them poetry.
> 
> also, i mentioned it in the text itself, but all of the quoted text is from "song of myself" by walt whitman. if you haven't read this poem in its entirety, i highly recommend. our boy walt was one randy dude.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rose meets some friends and makes some choices.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the mistakes and the emotions are mine, but basically nothing else. enjoy this chapter where the promised "plot" finally... you know, gets going.

Chapter Five

Time passed strangely now that he wasn't writing his book anymore. Days passed aimlessly, and his only metric for measurement was Rose — her work schedule, her visits to the coffee shop, and the application windows she was desperately trying to meet. He found himself keeping her hours, rather than his own, until he himself eventually felt the wear that she surely must have been feeling.

She’d discarded most of her initial options, settling on a few programs that she viewed as more “achievable.” She was older than most of the applicants, and there was a greater gap in her education, so she had much to make up for. But then, the decision had been practically made for her when one design program had pre-approved her based on her passionate entrance essay, and asked when she was available for an interview.

John was proud, and yet, he felt a nagging fear as the date drew closer. What would become of them when she was a student again? Would she be too busy for their daily coffee and phone calls?

With his book finished, and her starting design classes, it felt an awful lot like their time together was coming to an end.

“Rose,” he admonished, a week out from her interview, “you're working yourself to death.”

“I'm fine.” But she didn't look fine. The hands clasped around her mug of coffee were jittery, and there were bags under her eyes.

He insisted. “You're not fine. You're strung out. You're worn so thin you might rip like a page out of a book. You're stretched so tight you might snap. I could write sonnets dedicated to how  _ not fine _ you are.”

“Please don't,” she griped under her breath.

“Come out with me.”

“What?”

“I'm getting drinks and dinner. With my agent and her partner. Tonight. You should come.”

Her eyes were blank. “What?” she repeated.

“To celebrate me sending in my draft,” he added.

“It’s finished?” She sounded dazed. Her eyes were unfocused as she eked out, “Congratulations. That’s wonderful.”

“Rose?”

She looked up at him, a smile that was forcefully bright coming over her lips. “Sorry. I just can’t believe you’ve actually finished your near-future thriller novel already.” She sipped her coffee and winced at its bitterness. “But I don’t think going out is a good idea.”

“You need to go somewhere other than your flat and this shop.” He tried to infuse quiet authority into his voice, hoping he could coax her out for a night free from interview questions and cover letter drafts. It had worked before, that night, with the bath. But she seemed to be beyond mere stress.

Defensively, she shot back, “I do go places. I go to work.”

“Which is across the road from this shop. Like I said:  _ somewhere else _ .”

“But… but I have to go through my closet and pick an outfit for the interview.”

“The only thing you  _ have _ to do is pick out a dress for tonight and be ready by seven,” John countered. “We're getting Italian.”

  
  
  
  


He was almost entirely wrong. They met at eight, and were getting tapas at a Spanish restaurant.  


But it didn't matter, because Rose was wearing this floaty sort of dress and her eyes were rimmed in black and invitation and she looked, in a word, gorgeous. Rose looked so gorgeous, in fact, that Clara visibly did a double-take when she saw them walk in together, hands twined and laughing. Clara's partner was barely less subtle, grinning slyly and trying to hide it behind her pint glass. John fought the impulse to roll his eyes as he introduced them.

“Rose, meet Clara, my agent, and her fiancé, Bill. Don't believe a word either of them say.” He tried to say it graciously, and with humor, but he could tell Clara picked up on the warning. The woman's brown doe-eyes fluttered innocently.

“Are you calling my girl a liar?” Bill piped up, already wearing a teasing smile. “That's not very nice.”

“Neither are her jokes,” he responded. He turned to Rose to explain that his agent — with as many stories as she'd read and people she'd met — had a flair for the dramatic, but he was caught off guard by Rose’s blinding smile, which was currently trained on… Clara?  


“Lovely to meet you, Clara, Bill,” Rose offered, stretching out a confident hand to shake with each of them, her other hand not leaving his. This was the Rose he'd first met in the bookshop — confident, and bold, and prepared to banter with a complete stranger. This was the girl who was going to ace her upcoming interview based on sheer star power alone. Concealer hid her tired eyes, and spike heels were her battle armor. Whatever had troubled her in the coffee shop was clearly no longer an issue. “I'd warn you not to believe anything  _ he _ tells you about me, but John's not creative enough for any decent lies.”

“Ouch!” Clara laughed.

He shook his head, wearing an amused smile despite himself. “I don't recall you critiquing my creativity while you were reading my book for — what? the sixth time?”

Rose laughed and waved a hand. “I just fancy the headshot in the back.” She turned to Clara with a conspiratorial look. “He's rather photogenic, don't you think?”

“Not her type,” Bill interjected. “She likes her men tall, dark, and brooding.”

Clara rolls her eyes. “It was  _ one bloke _ , Bill.”

“Oh, he's brooding enough,” Rose added with a laugh. “You should see him in his cups.” And then she pantomimed wiping away tears, while mouthing the word “crier.”

“Shall we get a table?” John spoke up, hoping to head the conversation off before it got out of hand — or rather, before Rose got a drink  _ in _ her hand. She was sharp tonight, her eyes glinting beneath her dusky lashes. He had no idea what she might say, and he thought sitting down for it might be preferable.

Bill and Clara made for a table while he and Rose lagged behind. “You devil woman,” he whispered. “Are you  _ trying _ to get my agent to drop me?”

“I don't know, will it give you more time to read me poetry?” she whispered back sweetly, her tongue darting out between her teeth as she smiled.

He fought back a flush, instead putting a firm hand on her lower back and guiding her forward. “Play nice. I don't think they've got phone lines at the poorhouse.”

“Good point,” she whispered as they arrived at their table. “I'll be good, I promise.” But based on the way her hip gently bumped his, and the way her eyebrow quirked, and the way she leaned into him, it didn't feel at all like she was trying to be good. It felt like she was  _ trying _ to drive him spare.

They made a bit of small-talk while they waited for drinks, Rose keeping it mostly polite, and only occasionally pinning Clara beneath her flirtatious grin.  


Intermittently, his hand would seek hers under the table, and each time she squeezed his fingers, it sparked an ache deep in his chest.

However, as their cocktails arrived, John realized that he'd made a tactical error in going out to dinner with three women who all knew him  _ very _ well. He could barely find it in himself to be surprised when the topic turned to his failed relationships — before they'd gotten past the first round of shared plates.  


“...and, of course, I knew it was doomed from the first second he brought her to a reading,” Clara was saying, leaning over the table towards Rose. He couldn't blame her; something about Rose's relaxed posture in her seat, and the gentle curve of her smirking lips was magnetic. “I think she was embarrassed by the display of it all, and who can blame her? The shop was packed with women, all of them there to hear him speak—”

“—or to get a look at him!” Bill chimed in.

“And do you know what he did?”

“Clara,” John sighed. He didn't know why he bothered. It was futile. The glee on his agent and longtime friend’s face said it all.

“He ignored her!”

That made Rose turn a disapproving eye on him. “Did he?” she said, speaking to Clara.

“I didn't ignore her,” he began, before Clara had a chance to comment. “She was  _ shy _ . She didn't like the attention, so I tried not to call any attention to her.”

“In a room full of women, clamoring to hear that golden voice of yours?” Rose prodded, her eyebrow arching in that way he'd become so familiar with. She didn't think he'd made the right choice; that much was obvious by the narrowing of her eyes. “I imagine she still wanted to feel seen, if only by you. Bad move, John.” For a moment, she looked at him with a sort of faint sadness, before she continued, perking up. “Still, not as bad as dating your best friend just to get him off your back.”

“Oh,” Clara groaned around her straw, through which she was sipping a vodka cranberry, light on the cranberry. “You  _ didn't _ .”

“Yep,” Rose replied, her lips popping around the ‘p.’ “Mickey. Best mates since we were in nappies.”

“You never talk about him,” John found himself saying.

She shrugged. “He's not around as much anymore. His girlfriend is a doctor — whip smart, completely brilliant. He's got no time for dropout shop girls with her to keep busy.” Her grin wasn't entirely sincere, though John was sure he was the only one who could tell. He squeezed her hand in support, but she pressed on admirably. “But  _ that's _ not what we were talking about!”

“No, we were talking about how your dating history is apparently worse than John's?” Bill offered.  


“Right. So, like I said, basically friends from birth. And you know how, when you're kids like that, your parents have you married off practically before you can walk?” Her audience nodded in sympathy, though Clara's nod was interrupted by a slurping sip from her straw. “It was like that, only once I was old enough to know what I wanted, I wasn't having any of it. For years, I was able to hold him and my mum off — every trick in the book. I tried to hook Mickey up with my friends; not just one.  _ Multiple _ friends. I dated a whole string of blokes, just trying to annoy him into moving on. I even made up a fake long-distance girlfriend so he'd think I was a lesbian.” She giggled. “It was just my mate Shireen talking in a Northern accent. But through it all, Mickey hung around. So, eventually, I gave up. Figured… why not?”

“And?” Bill prompted, when Rose didn't immediately continue.

“It was… fine. Boring, really.” She sipped her wine, seeming to enjoy the disappointment on Clara's face. “I don't think he had a clue what to do with me, once he'd got me. We only ever went on dates down the pub, or clubbing sometimes. Never really did anything. Sex was fine, but nothing special.” She shrugged again, and John noticed the way she angled slightly away from him. “I suppose that's what you get when you date your friends.”

“Boo!” Clara heckled her. “That's not nearly as bad as John. I was expecting much more public humiliation!”

“That's because I haven't got to the bit where _ I'm _ the reason he met the love of his life,” Rose said, a slight grin on her lips. “We were at the pub one night, and I slipped in a puddle of piss or beer or cider or whatever the hell is on the floor in those places, and I hit my head on the bar.”

Clara, ever the appreciative audience, gasped.

“Passed out, stone cold.” Rose continued. “When I woke up, I was in A and E, and so was Mickey, and so… was one Martha Jones, doctor in residency. I left the hospital with a concussion and hair full of piss. Mickey left with her number. The rest is history.”

“Now,  _ that's _ a story,” Clara gaped. “John, you ought to write about  _ her _ .”

Rose laughed. “I haven't even started on the deadbeat boyfriend in a band, the vagabond who I didn't realize was homeless until I saw the old telephone box he lived out of, or the bloke who left me stranded in Barcelona!”

Eyes wide, his agent turned to him and said, “You were right. She's completely brilliant.”

And that made Rose crack her biggest, truest smile of the night.

  
  
  


“I like them,” she said decidedly. The pair of them had decided to walk to John's flat, since it was only a few blocks away, and get Rose a cab from there after she'd sobered up a bit. He wasn't sure who had suggested it, or why — only that it was agreed on as the best decision by all.

Granted, tonight didn't seem like a night for making particularly good decisions.

He was laughing like a carefree kid as he replied, “You like  _ everyone _ when you're pissed.”

“No, I flirt with everyone when I'm pissed,” she clarified. “I  _ like _ them. There's a difference.”

“Is there?” He reached out and snagged her arm as she tilted slightly sideways, heel catching on a crack in the sidewalk.  


“I think they're good people,” she went on, not letting go of his arm. “Bill's brilliant, even if she doesn't say much. Notices everything, and obviously worships the ground Clara walks on. Speaking of walking, I'm gonna… ‘m gonna just…” She kicked off one shoe, then another — never letting go of his arm — and swept them up in her free hand. She sighed as they kept walking. “Oooh, that's lovely.”

“No, it's unsanitary.”

“Spoilsport. And Clara,” she continued, obviously undeterred by his sceptical glance at her bare feet, wiggling toes polished a royal blue. “She obviously adores you — loves you like a brother — the way she teases you, it's so obvious! She knows you better than anyone, I think, which, in itself, would make her worth knowing.”

John scoffed. “Oh, come off it. I'm not hard to get to know. I'm an open book.”

“No,” Rose insisted. “You talk enough, but you never say anything. You're hiding.” She tugged on his arm, forcing him to look down at her. Without the spike heels, she was her normal height again, looking up at him with those wide, warm eyes and her skirt swishing around her thighs. “Stop hiding, yeah? Else how will anyone find you?”

Before he could fall too deep into her serious expression, he replied, “I'm not lost, Rose. I don't need to be found.”

Little wrinkles formed between her eyebrows as she stared at him. “John, dear," she said in a ludicrously bad posh accent. "I do believe you're intoxicated, because you're mixing your metaphors quite dreadfully.”

“Am I? I hadn't noticed.” He hadn't noticed anything, other than her bare feet and bare shoulders and wide eyes. “Are you cold?”

The wrinkles deepened. “Hm?”

“Cold,” he repeated. “Are you?”

“I… don't know.” She cocked her head to the side, examining him.

He wasn't sure when they'd stopped walking. Maybe _he_ was pissed.

“You don't know?”

She didn't seem to hear him. “Did you know your eyes do this… this  _ thing _ when you're worried about me? It's like… they get so wide, big like the ocean. They could swallow me up.” And then, just as suddenly, “Do you mind that I talk so much rot? Mickey always hated it.”

“I love it,” John said earnestly. He'd never meant anything more in his life. “I think you're brilliant, as Clara made blatantly obvious at dinner.”

“I'm not brilliant.” She didn't say it with any self-pity. Just assurance. Just utter confidence in her own ordinariness. It was infuriating. And worse, it was wrong.

Her back was abruptly turned to him as she made for the nearest doorway, which she leaned against, rooting through her purse for something. Maybe a cigarette. She’d said she used to smoke, quit months ago, but you could never tell with Rose. She suddenly looked very tired.

“I think you are,” he called, following after her. “In fact, I may even be certain.”

“I don't think you can  _ maybe _ be certain,” Rose commented, not even sparing him a glance, but he couldn't keep hold of his mouth anymore.

“I wish I had a mirror to show you. Not what you look like, which, by the way, is… like… well, that isn't it anyway, and telling you how beautiful you are is probably useless. But to show you what other people see in you, shining out through your skin and your eyes and when you talk… when you talk, that's how I know you're brilliant.”

By the time he'd gotten to the end of his impromptu speech, he was standing directly in front of her — possibly crowding her against the doorway — but he couldn't bring himself to think about anything other than being near her and how her eyes were wide open and her hand had fallen out of her bag and—

“You know what I think?”

Rose was so close to him, and her hair was down — the breeze, just this side of chilled, blowing it around her shoulders, carrying the scent of her shampoo — and he desperately wanted to know what she thought. Everything she thought. He said, “Tell me.”  


She slid her free hand over the lapel of his suit jacket, gripping the fabric. “I think you're drunk.” She was, maybe unconsciously, pulling him closer.  


He cracked a grin. “Perhaps. And I think you're gonna blow away everyone at your interview and get accepted to your program and graduate and be the most influential designer in all of London. You’re going to help people live beautifully and warmly, like you live.” He placed his hands over hers, feeling the chill in her fingers. “And I think I'll probably be your first client, because my flat is hideous. And someday, when you're cropping up in all those magazines you see in airports, I'll point to them and say, ‘I knew her.’ And nobody’ll believe me. And it’ll be because you  _ are  _ brilliant.”

Her eyes searched his. “John,” she said.

“Yes, Rose?” His voice was husky to his own ears.

“Are you… going to kiss me?”

His mind went white.  _ I don't know. Am I? _

“If you want me to,” his mouth said, heedless of his own brain and the blood racing in his ears.

She hesitated. Her fingers tightened on his lapel, tugging him even closer. One of his hands flew out to brace against the wooden doorframe, so he didn't lose his balance. She hesitated further. It wasn't like her to be this indecisive, but he waited. He'd wait as long as she needed. Probably forever, he'd wait.

She nodded.

He barely even needed to lean down to meet her, as she was already pressing up, standing on tiptoe to bring her lips to his. The kiss landed gently — and despite his intoxication, mercifully straight — on her parted lips, and he breathed her in.

She tasted like red wine and saffron and heaven.

She kissed with characteristic Rose enthusiasm, taking the lead, not allowing the moment to hang suspended in any indecision once she’d made her mind up. Immediately, both arms flew up and around his neck, and he felt the batter of her shoes against his back, pushing him closer to her. Her free fingers tangled in the hair at the nape of his neck, sending goosebumps dancing down his spine. When the front of her body bumped against his, his arm quickly slipped around her waist and tightened, desperate to keep her there. Every inch of contact burned.

He wasn't sure how long they stayed like that, kissing unhurriedly, bodies pressed together like flowers between the pages of a book. But as he pulled back for breath, it suddenly occurred to him that it was late and they were in the middle of a street — he wasn't even sure  _ which _ street — and he was drunk and Rose was also drunk and she might be furious come morning. This wasn't romantic or suave or clever, it was… impulsive.

What if she hated him for it?

The warm elation in his stomach soured unpleasantly, and he found himself pulling away more quickly than he'd intended. His fingers stung as he drew back from the abrasive wood, and his other hand dropped from her waist. On of her heels, still clasped firmly in her hand, snagged on his collar as her arms sank to her sides.

“Rose,” he said gruffly. He cleared his throat even as he tried to clear his head. “I have to get you home. It's late. You're drunk. Hell,  _ I'm _ drunk.” He didn't give her a chance to speak, or his mind a chance to notice the dismay that overtook her expression. “I'm… I shouldn't have… I'm sorry. Let me call you a cab.”

“I can walk,” Rose finally spoke. He voice was tight. He saw the tension rise in her body, her shoulders set firmly in a way he'd seen before. She was angry. She was hurt. He'd done it wrong.

He'd done the whole night wrong, probably, from top to bottom. The hand-holding. The flirting. The kissing.

“Rose, wait,” he began, but she'd already slid out from between him and the wall.

“S’alright, John. I know the way to the tube stop.” She suddenly seemed more sober than he remembered, her bare feet carrying her steadily away from him, steps even. “G’night,” she called over her shoulder.

The word bit at him.

“Rose,” he called, but she rounded the corner, and was out of sight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're coming to the end of my pre-written chapters and getting into unfinished territory, so i'm going to keep up as best i can, but just be warned that i'm going to be doing a lot of polishing and might be a bit late pretty consistently. but i won't leave you hanging; the next chapter should go up same time next week, if not before!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things come to light between John and Rose.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry to disappear! i have no good excuses, just a rough few weeks and some medication adjustments. but here's some much-needed conversation between our lovable idiots. (though they're not in the clear yet...)

Chapter Six 

His eyes read over the text message for the tenth time since he'd woken up from restless sleep, pausing on every word like it would help him understand where he'd gone wrong the night before.

_ Made it home safe. Tell Clara and Bill it was nice to meet them. _

And nothing else.

She'd given him absolutely _ nothing _ to go on. No clue as to how she was really feeling — which, in itself was a clue — or how he could fix this.

Before he could get lost in his reverie, the mobile in his hands rang.

“Morning, killer!” greeted Clara, her shit-eating grin evident over the line, despite the earliness of the hour and the lead weight in his own stomach. In the pale pre-dawn light, her enthusiasm made him squint painfully.

“Morning, Clara,” he answered, trying not to let his voice sound as heavy as he felt.

“Long night?” she teased.

He rubbed a tired hand over his eyes. “You've no idea.”

She seemed to take the hint, as her voice was immediately suspicious. “What happened after dinner?”

He didn't have a good answer. _ I have no idea _ was both unacceptable and untrue, and yet, it was very much the way he felt in that moment. What the _ hell _ had gone wrong?

“Rose and I had… a… moment.”

His agent sighed. “Be more vague, why don't you?”

Through gritted teeth, he replied, “I kissed her up against the side of a building, realized the error of my ways, and then she ran off. How’s that for specific?”

The line was silent. “Christ, John.”

“I know. I'm an idiot. Now,” he huffed, “why are you calling me?”

“Well,” Clara hedged, “I was going to tell you that I read over the first few chapters of your draft last night.” She paused, and he heard a few keyboard clicks. “I was going to tell you that it's good, possibly the best thing you've written and…” Her voice was resigned as she continued. “...and whatever you're doing, keep doing it, because I smell sequel potential.”

He snorted. “At least I've done _ something _ right.”

“She _ ran away _?” she asked, dismayed and apparently unable to concentrate on professional matters.

“Well, she didn't _ run _ so much as walk _ very _ quickly — and in a straight line, no less,” he added bitterly. “Clara, I'm a complete fool. I was arseholed and I talked some nonsense about how she's brilliant, and then I kissed her.”

“Was it…” He could practically feel Clara wincing. “I'm gonna regret asking. But was it… a bad kiss? Is that… is it possible that you're… just out of practice and it… maybe scared her off?”

He groaned. “_ Clara _.”

“Sorry, sorry! It's just that there was real chemistry there, you know? Bill and I aren't blind. We could see there was _ something _ between you. Something… well, I dunno, but you wrote a bloody book about her, so it's got to be pretty powerful.”

“I did no such—”

“John,” she said firmly, “before you even attempt to lie about this, please recall that your protagonist is called _ Violet _. Rose? Violet? It's… it's possibly the least subtle thing I've ever read. Good, but unsubtle to anyone who knows you.” And then he heard her exhale a deep sigh. “Now, explain to me exactly what happened last night.”

He recounted the whole walk home to the best of his memory. Bare feet. Staggering. Her smile. The little nod of her head, and her body leaning toward him. Her mouth. _ Fuck _ , he internally groaned in frustration, _ her mouth _. How had it all gone so catastrophically wrong?

“Clara,” he pleaded. “It was… it wasn't some sloppy, drunken mashing of mouths. It was a good kiss, a proper kiss. But I knew I'd fucked up in seconds. I couldn't stop thinking of how angry she’d be come morning.” He tried to roll some of the anxiety and tension out of his shoulders. “She's my friend, and I got pissed and kissed her like we were in some kind of… romance film.”

“She's not your friend,” Clara corrected reasonably. “She's a girl you harassed at a bookshop, who you then happened to fall in love with.”

He suspected very much that she was right.

  
  


He wasn't expecting Rose to show up at the bookshop at their normal time, but she did. Her shoulders seemed stiffer than usual, set with a determination that he couldn't place. Last night, she’d worn her clothes like armor. But this morning, it was all in her expression.

What was she steeling herself against today?

Again, he wondered if Clara had been right in her assessment of their relationship. Had it ever been a friendship, a balanced relationship? Or had she just been fuel for his creative fire, him using up her intoxicating energy and dazzling mind like kindling?

She approached the table directly, and a lump formed in his throat. _ So, this is to be a short visit. _Her name tag was still on, her dark jeans and long legs cutting a line through his vision like a rip in a page. And her eyes were pinned on him, leaving him stuck to his chair.

“Rose,” he began, unsure of what he'd say next, but knowing that he had to at least try to—

“I know what it is,” she interrupted, voice clear. “It's a thinly-fictionalized and heartily romanticized memoir about your life as a single, male author of moderate fame and success.” Her eyes narrowed. “It's just you, with an alias.”

_ Fuck. _

His mouth ran away with him before he could stop it. “That's not a genre, that's a given. Isn't all writing autobiographical?”

“Cut the bullshit, John. I'm right, aren't I?”

He couldn't say anything to that, short of lying.

“And it's me, too. With an alias, I assume.”

“Rose—”

“What did you call me? Some other plant, I imagine. Lily? Holly? Poppy?” Her eyes narrowed again. “Iris? Violet?”

“Why does it matter?” he snapped.

“I suppose it doesn't. Especially not now that the book is finished. So, are we done, then?”

He felt his throat go dry, and barely managed a faint, “Done?”

“Yes! Done!” She spoke in a way that a passerby might construe as cheerful, if they couldn't see her taut shoulders and whitening knuckles as she leaned on the table. “Have I given you what you needed?”

“What?” he choked out.

“I mean, it's a good story, I'll give you,” she continued, speaking like it was the most normal conversation in the world. “Author with writer's block meets woman in a bookshop. She happens to be a fan. They strike up an unlikely relationship, dancing around one another for months. And then… what?” She leaned down closer, abruptly eye-level. Her irises glowed with irrepressible anger. “Do they fall in love, John? Or — no! Better. They have a one-night-stand, maybe? That seems more your speed. Impulsive. Is that what you were after last night, before your guilt got the better of you — making life imitate art?”

Dumbly, he repeated: “_ What _?”

But he’d stopped, he wanted to insist. He’d stopped for _ precisely _that reason. Instead, he said nothing.

“I just wanted to know if I've given you enough to work with. If I can be done with my role as your devoted fan. Muse. Whatever.”

“That's not what the book’s about.”

Her gaze was challenging as she replied, “What's it about, then?”

He swallowed back the words on the edge of his tongue. Words like, _ I don't know what it's about _ and _ it's about falling in love with you _ and _ it’s how I wish I could love you _ and _ it's the mirror I wish you'd look into. _

_ It's how I see you. _

But he couldn't say any of that. It wouldn't help her understand, and it would just make him look as pathetic and lovelorn as he knew he was.

“Of course. You still can't say. Even now.” She shook her head. “Goodbye, John.”

He was sure there were words, somewhere. Words he could use to make her stop, to make her stay, to undo everything that had led them here. He was _ sure _ they existed.

But he didn't know them. And so he had to watch, just watch, as she walked away.

  
  


It was a long night.

He’d fucked up irretrievably, and he knew it. He should have guessed from her subdued reaction the day before that sending it off to publication without ever showing her was… not a good decision. She’d been with him through the whole process — she’d offered ideas, and support, and distractions, and occasionally the dialogue straight from her mouth. But he’d cut her out, in the end.

He saw her sleepy face, pressed into the downy comforter. Heard her voice, whispering.

_ I trust you. _

But he’d been afraid. Unable to reciprocate her open-hearted trust. And he’d let his fear of losing her, of losing the light she brought, sabotage the whole thing.

The first thing he had to do was halt any forward motion in terms of the draft. Before Clara sent it off to editors and publishers, before anyone even thought of putting his work out into the world for public consumption, he needed to get his head on straight, and give Rose the story to approve.

He sent Clara an email telling her not to show it to anyone.

When she didn’t answer immediately, he sent another one: _ I’m serious, Clara. Nobody. _

And then, he spent the rest of the night poring over the manuscript. If he was going to send it to Rose for approval, it needed to be as polished as he could make it. He needed to make her see it for what it was — his heart, put to paper. Her, as he saw her. And an apology, all wrapped into one.

A long night turned into a long few nights.

He drank more than he wanted to, and with no particular taste or discrimination. A three-day old, half-drunk glass of wine was no less palatable than an icy beer from the fridge, or a very cheap and extremely straight shot of whisky. He forgot to eat — once, twice, and then more times after. Glasses piled in the sink with congealed remnants of booze glazing the bottoms. His kitchen became enough of a horror show that he began to avoid it entirely, in favor of drinking straight from the bottle. And all the while, the manuscript sat there on his screen, mostly unchanged. Eventually, he put the laptop away entirely, and got out scratch paper and a pen.

_ I can’t think, _ he reasoned. _ So, I’ll write. Clear my head. Then I can edit. _

_ Then I can fix it. _

The alcohol did serve to carry him through the motions of writing — moved his hand over the paper, and his mind along the winding roads of memory. He wrote about her, at first as much as he dared, and then as much as his writing hand could take.

He was smeared in ink for days.

He laughed at his own poems, at used-up phrases about what her eyes were like when they stared at him in emptiness; what her mouth had been like to taste and then to break from; he wrote poems and then tore them to pieces. There was no beauty in them — only the sort of honesty that hurt rather than healed.

He slept at his desk, or on the sofa, or on the floor in front of the unlit hearth, waking up for a fit of writing and another drink before falling asleep again.

  
  


The day of her interview dawned bright and cold, an almost-autumnal dampness seeping in through the leaky windows of his flat. John loved old buildings, but not the dew that had somehow built up on his thin blanket. When he rolled over and saw his mobile — where he'd left it, with no new messages — he thought he might call her. But he didn't. Instead, he spent the whole day either buried in his copy of _ Leaves of Grass _ and a bottle of scotch or staring at the blank white walls, using the burn of alcohol and the memory of her voice to warm him. The fireplace remained dark and cold.

When night fell, he had a headache that he knew would turn into a wicked hangover by morning, and he found himself wondering if he should text her. Nothing excessive, or pathetic, or any of the other ways he was feeling. Just a message to ask how the interview had gone. How she was feeling.

To say how proud he was of her.

To tell her he was sorry.

_ No, _ he thought vehemently. _ Not like that. _

He couldn’t tell her; he had to show her.

He wondered who she might be celebrating with tonight, if the interview went well. Would it be her friend Mickey? Her mum, who he’d probably never meet? Friends he didn’t know, from that whole life of hers that existed, somewhere far beyond his grasp? He wanted to touch that part of her life, let himself sink into it and bask in the glow that she shed on everyone she met.

He wondered if she’d let him, if he asked.

John picked up his mobile, thumbs hovering over the screen.

But what could he even say? He had nothing to offer her except apologies and an unwanted, unedited manuscript.

The truth was that she deserved better, and he knew it — had known it from the beginning. He felt it with a weight that bent his shoulders and made him want to reach for the bottle all over again.

Because, in a sense, all of her accusations had been right. John had lived his whole life writing what he knew. As a child, he’d spun tales of adventure out of countryside rambles and long, slow days by the sea. As he grew, he wrote of other things.

Justine had been based on Sophie — that much was painfully transparent to anyone who knew him. And now, Violet was, in essence, Rose. He’d written a book about yet another woman he loved, only with Rose, it hadn’t been a shared experience. There had been no brainstorming over a bottle of wine, or sharp edits made with her own hand. He’d harvested stories from her life and joy from her soul without ever asking her permission, without ever letting her see what he was making with it all. He’d treated her like the subject of his art, and not the complete person he knew her to be. He’d convinced himself she was a heroine, designed to carry his story out into the world.

For all his outward expressions of encouragement and support, he’d created a work that reduced her, boxed her in, limited her to the confines of his imagination. A vivid imagination, yes. But still a cardboard cutout of a woman he loved, that he could arrange to love him back. It was a story full to brimming with adoration, but paper-thin love wasn’t enough for a woman like Rose.

She deserved the world.

He set down the phone, and rested his head in his hands. As his fingers raked through his hair, it came to him.

He’d write her one.

That night, he sent Clara another email — a short message, just enough to warn her. He tended to fall out of touch when he got like this, and she deserved to know.

_ I need to make a few edits. Talk soon. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> at some point, i realized that this whole fic was just my subconscious dunking on hemingway and the many male authors who have co-opted women's stories, under the guise of a kissy story for my soft faves. but don't worry... john is much better than hemingway. and there's more kissy softness to come.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Christmas cheer, and some fun on both sides of the family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [sprays the room with Angst-Be-Gone™]  
enjoy our little dip into rose's perspective!

Chapter Seven

Winter was Rose’s favorite time of year. Though her family had never been particularly religious, and certainly not wealthy enough to participate in holiday cheer the usual way, there was a magic to London in December that she could never quite shake. And on Christmas Eve, with the glow of fairy lights cutting through the foggy evening, it was more spellbinding than ever.

As she walked from the tube stop to her mum’s flat, the wintry chill sent shivers up her spine, and she let a bright grin slip across her face. Snow was coming, and she felt it like a tangible presence waiting just overhead. She was sure she looked mad to anyone who might be looking — giggling to herself and beaming up at the sky — but no one was, and anyway, it was Christmas. One was allowed to be suspiciously joyful.

She burrowed her fingers deeper into her coat pockets as she entered the estate — fairy lights being replaced with the dim, yellow glow of a hundred windows; holiday music with the thrum of generators and loud voices — and she took the stairs at a jog, eager to get inside and out of the cold.

When she arrived at her mum’s door, she barely had to knock before she heard the voices —  _ “Coming, sweetheart!” “Must be Rose!” “She’s a bit late—” “Well, it’s that job of hers. Airs and graces, I keep tellin’ her, no time for anythin’ else.” “Let her in, Jacks!” _ — and Rose rolled her eyes in amusement.

The door swung wide, and she was quickly pulled inside. “Rose!” Jackie cried, arms almost instantly around her daughter. “I’ve missed you, sweetheart!”

Rose snorted, “It’s been a week, Mum,” and then, with a grin, “I missed you, too.” She managed to disentangle herself only to be dragged into a hug from cousin Mo, and then Mickey. Her voice muffled by his parka, she greeted, “Hello, Micks.”

“Rose, ‘s good to see you,” he replied. “Martha, did you say hello to Rose?” They all knew she hadn’t yet — there had scarcely been time — but it was plain as anything that he was nervous. Before the woman could get up off the sofa, Rose’s eyes had zeroed in on her hands, which were twisting nervously.

“Oh my  _ God _ ,” Rose squealed. “Congratulations! Mickey!” She smacked his shoulder in a false show of irritation. “Why didn’t you tell me?” She was already moving towards Martha, arms outstretched for a hug.

She darted a glance over her shoulder to see her childhood friend, grinning ear to ear, his smile as sparkling as she’d ever seen it. “Well, you were busy, with class and work and things.”

“Not too busy for  _ this! _ ”

“It’s wonderful to see you, Rose,” Martha greeted her warmly. As Rose embraced her, she smelled cinnamon and the faint scent of ammonia that never fully disappeared around the residency student. And when she pulled away, Martha was smiling apologetically. “Sorry we didn’t tell you — Mickey insisted you were too busy.”

“Oh,” Rose waved the woman’s concern aside, “don’t worry about me. I’m just  _ so _ pleased for you both. It’s wonderful! Do you have a date set?”

From there, it was all wedding plans and rum-spiked cocoa and chatter under the Christmas tree. The evening passed in the kind of glittery haze that can only be felt in complete safety, among the best kind of company, while snow falls outside. But every so often, Rose's eyes would drift to the window and track the white powder on its downward journey.

“Rose?” Jackie said softly, interrupting her daughter's thoughts with another mug of cocoa. “Alright?”

“Hm? Yeah.”

But it was clear the woman didn't believe her, her eyebrow arching in disapproval. “Ready for dinner, then? Let's set the table.” Jackie grinned, because that had always been Rose’s favorite part, the one holiday responsibility she’d never resented. She knew how to set a table.

Rose hummed her agreement and followed her mother to the table, which had been dragged out into the center of the room and supplied with folding chairs to make room for their guests.   


Methodically, she set to preparing the table for company, letting her mind leave behind all its wandering in favor of smaller, gentler things.

The spread, however humble, was gorgeous once Rose had worked her magic.

The lights in the flat were dimmed, and the fairy lights from the tree cast a warm glow over the proceedings. The turkey — pre-made and purchased from Tesco, because Jackie had a tendency to lose track of the things she put in her oven — sat proudly in the center of the table, candles scattered delicately around it, as well as dishes of gravy and cranberry sauce and other colorful side offerings. Each plate was garnished with some herb or sprinkling from Jackie's seldom-used spice cabinet. Old fabric had been fashioned into mismatched cloth napkins somewhere along the journey of Rose's childhood, and she'd folded them into starry-shaped bursts in the absence of napkin rings. Each setting was accompanied a glass of red wine and a glass of champagne — both beverages provided by Rose and her higher salary. Though some of the plates were plastic or cracked, they were still laid out with the utmost precision. And on each plate was a Christmas rose, plucked from the bouquet that Mickey had so thoughtfully brought Jackie.

Rose stepped back with a smile of satisfaction. She was grateful for the distraction, the opportunity to clear her head, and ran a gentle hand over the faded tablecloth. “Alright,” she called over her shoulder to Mickey, Martha, cousin Mo and her boyfriend, all of whom appeared to be engaged in some sort of drinking game. “Dinner’s ready!”

As everyone sat down, they cooed over Rose's efforts. With a laugh, Martha exclaimed, “I'd say you really  _ are _ learning things in design school, only I'm sure this is just your natural good taste.”

Rose blushed. “I've got plenty to learn, I'm sure. But we haven't exactly gotten to Table Dressings 101.”

Jackie pressed a kiss to her daughter's temple as she fluttered around the table. “It's beautiful, dear.”

“Ooh,” came another voice, “and who is responsible for this posh champagne?” It was Mo’s boyfriend, holding up the nearly-empty bottle and miming taking a swig.

“That's Rose,” her mum piped up, beaming for England. “She got a promotion at work. Can you imagine? School, her own business,  _ and _ a promotion at Henrik’s?”

“Putting us all to shame,” teased Mickey, who had swiped the bottle and was currently topping off his own glass, which he’d elected  _ not  _ to save for the toast.

“There's not really a business, not yet,” Rose protested. “Just a… an idea, a pitch.”

“A pitch that people are throwing money at faster than you can say ‘ _ House Beautiful _ ’!”

“Mum,” she groaned. “It's just grants and things. I have to apply for them, same as anyone.”

But Jackie couldn't be reasoned with. She was proud as a peacock as she explained to a captive audience that her Rose was going to bring interior design to the people. “No more buying posh home magazines and then eatin’ off paper plates,” she enthused. “She's gonna make those snotty companies start selling products for  _ everyone _ . And none of that cheap, disposable stuff.” The woman laughed and held up her champagne flute. “No more cracked glasses!”

The rest of the table reached for their drinks, repeating variations on “to Rose” and “no more cracked glasses” until she was certain her scarlet blush was evident, even in the low light. “Alright, that's enough,” she shushed them. “Let's eat!”

The truth was, she  _ was _ proud. After settling in during the first few weeks of her design program, her mentor—a lovely woman named Sarah Jane—had suggested Rose pull the day planner back out of retirement and start working on a business plan. Starting with actually getting her A-levels. “It’s clear you have vision, and ambitions beyond picking paint swatches and staging for magazines. You want the  _ world  _ to be warmer, kinder, more beautiful. And that takes more than table settings, dear.” The advice was given with such a warm smile, such a sense of knowing, that Rose couldn’t help but agree.

She  _ did  _ have ambition. The process of developing a business plan and carrying it out, though foreign and at times absolutely terrifying, was thrilling. And Sarah Jane was guiding her through all of it. The pair had even spent an embarrassingly long time crafting the perfect elevator pitch, which she’d written out time and time again when seeking grants.   


She believed in her idea with all her heart, and it pleased her right down to her toes that her mum was happy with the direction her life had taken. Since she wasn’t exactly eligible for the traditional educational options until she’d finished school, Rose was doing more of an apprenticeship than anything, and she’d been worried about her mum’s reaction to something that sounded so… well, posh. But Sarah Jane’s support and Rose’s growing confidence had convinced Jackie more than any elevator pitch could.

But, Rose found herself thinking, she couldn't bear taking all the credit — not when she'd never have taken the plunge, or even  _ thought _ she could’ve have more, without…

Someone tapped her shoulder.

“Rose?”

“Hm?” She gave a rueful grin. “Sorry. Was away with a fairies.”

Mo wore a familiar, concerned expression. “More wine, love?”

“Sure, thanks, Mo.”

  
  
  


Dinner was eaten and cleared from the table in a leisurely fashion, plates removed and new ones brought out, bearing spice cake and mince pies and shortbread cookies that had once been an offering for Santa, but were now shared between them all. Rose dipped hers in steaming cocoa, trying to let the rum take the edge off. But now that night had fallen and the ground was covered in snow, she felt the need to go out and walk in it.

“Uh oh,” Mickey spoke, interrupting her thoughts. “She's got that look.”

“Like she's about to bolt.” Jackie nodded in agreement. “It's no good arguin’. Just help us clear the table ‘fore you go, alright, sweetheart?”

She gave a sheepish grin. “Alright.”

The dishes were hardly on the rack to dry before she was tugging on her coat, only one arm shoved carelessly into a sleeve as she rushed about to deliver final hugs. Her coat hung off of her, as did a shopping bag full of leftovers.

“And you're sure you're okay to walk?”

“Mum, I'm perfectly alright. See?” Grinning, she modeled walking a tightrope, and was able to do so with moderate success. “Certainly sober enough to know how to hail a cab if I need one.”

“A cab!” Jackie laughed. “That promotion’s gone straight to your head. Alright, then. Be careful.” As Rose rushed out the door, her mum called, “And let me know when you make it home!”

  
  
  


Night had well and truly fallen over London, but it felt practically bright beneath the full moon and Christmas lights. The fresh blanket of snow crunched beneath her boot-clad feet as she wandered the streets.

Now that she'd left the bubble of warmth that was her mum’s flat, Rose's mood was subdued. The walk to the tube stop felt longer than it had before, knowing that only an empty flat and a bottle of wine awaited her at home. She couldn’t remember why she’d been so eager to leave in the first place. So, she wandered.

As she walked, she let herself drift in hazy daydream — memories carrying her back to another time, when coming home hadn't felt quite so empty.

To the almost Pavlovian spike of endorphins she’d felt every day, when she entered the coffee shop and saw blue eyes in a kind face, waiting for her. To long evenings spent on the phone, stories and truths on the tip of her tongue. The way it had felt, waking up and seeing him there one morning — just there, close enough to touch, eyelashes fluttering in sleep.   


How his eyes had opened as if her waking had summoned him, and focused immediately on her.   


The way it felt to hear him say, “Good morning, Rose,” in that gorgeous, gravelly, vulnerable voice.

She shook her head.

All a fantasy. All gone.

She’d done plenty with her time, since their friendship had inevitably collapsed. She hadn’t pined, and she certainly hadn’t been idle. But she felt the loss of John’s smile and face and laugh like an itch — subtle, but ever-present.

She buzzed into her building, pulling out the key to her flat as she took the lift, a weary sigh on the verge of escaping. But as she stepped out, the package on her doorstep stopped her short.

Brown paper wrapping. Twine. And a sheet of creamy paper, folded in half, tucked between.

Notebook paper.

She leaned over the package to unlock her door, giving it a wide berth, as if she feared disrupting a mirage. When the door swung open, she stepped carefully over the threshold. She put the leftovers in the fridge — hands shaky, but methodical — and removed her coat. She texted her mum to let her know she’d gotten home safely, and thanked her for the leftovers. Only then did she turn back to retrieve the package.

_ There's no way _ , she scolded herself.  _ It's just a misplaced delivery. Wrong address _ .  _ Or a gift from one of the girls at work. _

The rational part of her mind insisted.  _ But it's his paper. _

Her fingers slid under the twine and withdrew the folded sheet of paper. It fell open in her hands, and she recognized John's sloppy scrawl.

_ Rose,  _ it began _ . _

She swallowed.

_ I don't know what to say, really. Only I wanted you to have this, to read it before anyone else. I haven't sent it to any publishers, or even Clara. It's— _

A few words were scratched out.

_ You get the final say. It is, after all, your story. Nobody else ever has to see it. _

She could practically see the hesitation in his hand — the way his pen dropped a few lines before continuing.

_ Rose, it was never just the writing. I'm just a horrible coward. _

_ I'm sorry. _

_ Happy Christmas. _

_ -John _

She ripped at the brown paper, and out fell a manuscript — neatly printed, like it was straight from a typewriter and bound together solely for her benefit. The cover page was mostly blank, but for a few tidy little words, black against white.

_ LEAVES OF PAPER _

and then, below that:

_ For Rose. _

Her hands still shook. She opened it.

  
  
  


His mobile rang twice before he answered.   


“Rose,” she heard, instead of ‘hello’ or a holiday greeting or anything else he could have said. The sound of her name on his lips after so long —  _ had it only been months? it felt like years _ — made her stomach drop.

“Hello,” she said, hating that she sounded so tremulous.

In the background, there was clamor — the sound of John's name being called, something like clattering pans falling to the floor, and raucous laughter. She managed to say, “You're busy.” And then, nervously, “Of course you are. It's Christmas.”

“No,” John rushed out. “It's just my brothers. They're being…” he trailed off.

“Festive?”

“Arseholes.”

She laughed. “Well, don't let me disrupt your celebrations with my harrowing critiques of your manuscript.”

She heard the whoosh of his breath down the line, and the sudden silence. He'd clearly left the party to speak to her, and she regretted her flippancy immediately.

“Rose—”

“So, it  _ was _ Violet.”

Quickly, he replied, “I can change it.” There was tension in his tone and it twisted her heart.

“No,” she said, firmly. “I like it.”

He hesitated. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she said, and she knew he couldn't be missing the smile in her voice. “It's good. Suits me.”

“Suits  _ her _ ,” he corrected nervously. “I didn't just… steal from you wholesale. I like to think there's a  _ little _ bit of generative work in there.” And then, in a rush, “How far are you?”

“Not very. Just a chapter.”

“Right, well, take your time. You don't have to read it all tonight, or even soon.” She could practically visualize him — hand scratching the back of his neck, shifting his weight. Maybe shoving his round glasses back up his nose, since they had a tendency to slip. “Just… when you're ready.”

“Knowing your writing,” Rose teased, “I won't be able to put it down.”

He chuckled. “That's flattering.”

“It's true.”

“Just like my descriptions,” he said, hurrying to change the subject. “Those are true, Rose, they're all—oh, bloody hell,  _ what _ ?”

“Johnny boy,” came a foreign voice, loud and teasing and close to the speaker. It sounded very similar to John's, only more rumbling and deep. “You gonna be out here all night?”

Another voice, this one feminine, piped up from further away, “You'll catch your death, darling, come inside.”

“And anyway,” piped up a third voice, “who's so important that you have to talk to them on Christmas?” She heard the sound of a scuffle as the phone was presumably shifted. When the line was clear again, John was obviously not the one speaking to her. The voice was accusing. “Don't you know this is a family holiday?”

“ _ Guys, come on— _ ”

Rose bit back a smile. “John, how strange your voice sounds. Bit high. Girly, even.”

“Oi!” came the protest. “It's a girl! And she insulted me!”

“Christ, James, how old are you?” John groaned, his voice muffled and distant. “Give the phone ba—no,  _ no _ .”

“What? I don't bite,” was said with a rough chuckle, and then the voice neared the speaker. “So, what's this about?”

It was about this time that Rose decided she needed a drink.

“My, my, John,” she snickered as she crossed the kitchen. “How  _ low _ your voice is. I think you need a lozenge.”

The man, which she'd by now determined to be another brother, snorted. “Now, what are your intentions with our Johnny, hm? Calling on Christmas, getting him all into a state. He practically grew wings and flew out of the kitchen, you know…”

“ _ Chris, I swear— _ ”

“Uh-uh,” Rose chided. “Christmas may be a family holiday, but you're on a  _ private _ mobile. So, if you could be so kind as to return John to me…” She let her voice trail off deliberately, unable to keep the smile entirely out of her tone.

“Oh, I like this one,” he said, clearly not to her. “Shoulda brought  _ her _ home for Christmas. Much more fun than that bottle of piss you call whisky.”

“Jesus,” John muttered, still in the distance. She wondered how they were keeping him away from his phone for so long.

“He brought the Glenfiddich, didn't he?” Rose gave a put-upon sigh when not-John answered with an affirmative grunt. She poured her own drink, a rich Bordeaux that she'd been given by one of the girls at work as a holiday gift. She was almost entirely sure it was stolen. “Thinks he's bloody Hemingway. I've told him, it's not good for a party."

"Even Da hates it, and he's  _ Scottish _ ."

"Chris, was it? Put him on, would you, so I can scold him properly.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Ta. And happy Christmas,” she added blithely.

“Same to you.”

There was more vague shuffling before a disgruntled John re-emerged on the line, just in time for her to settle back on the loveseat, glass in hand.

“Rose?”

“Ah, now  _ that's _ the golden voice I remember. Hello again, John. I was just being informed that you  _ still  _ have dreadful taste in alcohol.”

In the background, she heard the faint sounds of smacking lips and “her name’s Rose, then,” and the shutting of a door.

John sighed. “Arseholes.”

Rose finally let out the belt of laughter she'd been holding in. “They seem charming,” she said between giggles. “The big one particularly.”

Dismayed, he cried, “How do you know he's big?”

“Women have a way of knowing these things.” She spoke through a wide grin. “I also have a way of knowing he's married.”

“Good Lord, woman. That's positively occult.”

“No, you just mentioned it once.”

That drew out a laugh that sounded more than a bit relieved. “I'm sorry. They're in rare form tonight. Completely infantile.”

“I already said… it's perfectly alright. Your family seems lovely.” She tried not to sound as wistful as she felt, and instead took a sip from her glass. The wine was deep and oaky and calmed the uneven thump of her heart, which ached.   


She tried not to picture him in a big, warm house, surrounded by people who loved him, while she sat in her flat and missed him.   


She failed.

“They're alright, I suppose,” he was saying. But she could hear the smile that lurked in his answer. “Now, where were we?”

“I believe you were going back inside before you catch your death.”

“It's hardly even cold,” he scoffed. “My mother is just all too happy to play her role of chief dramatist and worrier while we’re all home.”

“Well, she loves you,” Rose rejoined.   


That was when it occurred to her — when the words stood right at the tip of her tongue, begging to let themselves be heard.

_ I love you. _

Her chest tightened, and she gripped her wine glass like it was her only connection to the real, solid world around her.

She loved him. Of course she did.  


The line went quiet for a moment, before his words cut through her dazed realisation. “Rose, I really am sorry. I… it was just that I didn't want to break the spell, you know? You were so funny, and smart, and frankly, it was terrifying.” She couldn't help her disbelieving laugh, and it seemed to prompt him further. He rushed on. “No, really. It's like, you… you walked in and I felt like I knew you, or like I wanted to know you, and then I started writing and it was all you, and I was so scared that if I said anything, it would drive you away. I thought… what if we weren't even friends? What if I was just some twat who harassed you at a bookshop and you were just indulging me?”

“That's mad.”

“Rose, it was always me calling you,” he said earnestly. His voice didn't sound accusing in her ears — only fearful. “Always me trying to move it beyond shop talk. Always me pushing. It wasn't until… that night, after dinner, that I realized I might have been pushing too hard.” He paused. “And then, to realize I'd not just pushed you beyond your comfort, but taken it all and put it into a book? I felt… Rose, I felt physically ill.”

“It wasn't like that,” she found herself protesting. “It  _ isn't _ like that.” She’d wanted to believe his intentions were good, all this time. And he’d proved it, albeit later than she’d hoped.

“And then, you never called. And I never called.” His voice was desperate now, spilling as water from a tap, only low and desperate and wonderfully warm in her ears. “I wasn't sure you wanted me to. But it was…  _ months _ of wishing I could ring you and ask you how your day was. In fact, that's enough of me babbling — tell me, what have I missed? Did you do your interview? Are you back in school?”

But his mother's voice came again: “Sweetheart, it's freezing out here. Come inside for pudding.”

“Mum—”

“It's alright,” Rose said, voice soft. “Go have Christmas pudding with your family. I'll be here tomorrow.”

“But…” He sounded so genuinely hesitant that she took pity on him.

“Tomorrow,” she asserted. “I've got a break at eleven. Meet me at  _ The Bookery  _ for coffee. And you're buying.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” She smiled. “Happy Christmas, John.”

His voice melted down the line like so much cocoa over a flame. “Happy Christmas, Rose.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reunited and it feels so good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the delay, but this chapter is a fluffy one! hopefully, it makes up for the prolonged wait. it's also got quite a few hilariously un-subtle little references scattered throughout, so i hope you enjoy those!

Chapter Eight   


When she arrived at the shop, he was already waiting for her, but obviously trying to keep himself busy. That much was evident in his tense posture at their usual table. His laptop was closed and his notebook open, hand fidgeting with his pen but not writing anything. Brow furrowed. Lips pursed. A lock of hair hanging down over his face. Glasses sliding down his nose. A portrait of John at work, and a sight she’d not realized she’d missed.

_ I love you,  _ her heart thumped out. She wondered how long she'd felt that rhythm beating in her chest. Since autumn? Since summer? Since that first phone call? Certainly not from that first cup of coffee, her first laugh at one of his snarky jokes, the first smile that hesitated on his lips. Certainly not that long…   


She’d never been a writer, but her mind was suddenly brimming with words. How could she say she forgave him, while also demanding her own voice in this story? How could she tell him that she loved him, but that he had to be honest with her from this point on?

She clutched the manuscript closer to her chest as she stepped up to the table.   


The words came to her. “I have a guess.”

His eyes darted up to her, surprised. She was early. “A guess?” He gestured toward the seat across from him, urging her to sit down, and she did so with shaking legs.

“Mhm. As to what the book’s about.”

Blue eyes dropped to the bundle that she laid out on the table, face down. Then returned to her face, searching. “Tell me.”

“It’s a collaborative work — not your first, but probably your most ambitious.” She took a deep breath. “It’s a story, a work of fiction, but it’s rooted in a real relationship between real people, who created it… together.”

She felt like the moment of hesitance would last forever, with his pen still poised in his hand and his gaze intent and her knuckles white around the edges of his manuscript that she hoped — goodness, she hoped — would become something much more.

But the bubble of silence around their table eventually burst. His hand stretched across the table to grasp hers, pry it away from the bundled pages, and his hand felt warm. “That’s… that’s exactly what I want it to be.”

“I want to help you edit it,” Rose said firmly. She needed to be clear, before she got swept away by anything. “Because if you think I don’t see myself clearly, you see yourself even worse. Maybe I contributed to that, and I’m sorry. But now, I want to make sure neither of us… fudges anything too much. I know I’m not a writer—”

“No,” John hurried out, his hand clenching around hers. “It doesn’t matter. I’d love it.” He grinned, and the edges of his eyes crinkled pleasantly. “You know me. I get swept away. I need someone to keep me grounded.”

“John, there’s more.”

This was met with a flicker of worry.

“I want us to be…” The word she searched for stalled on her tongue, and she barely managed to murmur, “friends.” Her throat tightened around the word like it was resisting being spoken, but she pressed on. “Properly. I don’t want to dodge around it or leave you in doubt. And the fact that we're friends can't make us working together strange or difficult. I want us to be honest with each other.” Little tendrils of guilt tangled in her stomach.  _ Well, not about that. _

He hesitated. Nodded. “Okay.”

She felt relieved at his rapid acceptance of it all, and exhaled a deep sigh. “Good, then.”

“Yeah?” And a grin nudged the corners of his mouth as he initiated their ritual exchange.

“Yeah.”

“Brilliant.”

She laughed a little, and then darted a hand out to grab his cup of coffee. “Sorry, no time for a real cuppa. Lucy bailed again.” She sipped it, and it was cooled. He really must have been sitting there a while.

“She's still there?” John asked with a dismissive roll of his eyes. “I hate to be callous, but she deserves the sack.”

“Oh, just wait 'til I tell you what she pulled the weekend before Christmas—” but she stopped as quickly as she'd started, suddenly hyper aware of their time spent apart. “Well. But I should probably get going…” She hated the flatness of her voice and how she was already halfway out of her seat, but nerves and good sense had gotten the better of her. She had to go before she told him too much. Told him everything.

He stood along with her, the wood scraping loudly. "Right. No rest for the weary. Or for writers." He cleared his throat. "But… but we'll meet again soon?"

She couldn't help but smile. "Yes. Definitely."

"Good."

"I'll just—"   


"What about tomorrow?" he cut in. His voice had cracked, and he appeared as nervous as she'd ever seen him.

"Tomorrow?"

"Yes. See, my mum gave me this… blanket? Or tapestry." He winced. "Or maybe it's a carpet. It was for Christmas. She says she and Dad got it in Egypt, I think, and I've no idea what to do with it, and I painted my walls a few weeks ago, but the color… well, anyway, I think I could use a bit of professional help."

As he'd spoken, she'd felt a grin that she couldn't prevent beginning to emerge. "You want a consultation?"   


"Yes." He nodded. "Yes, exactly."

She tried to stifle the giddy laughter that bubbled in her belly, and very nearly managed. "Alright. Tomorrow. After my shift ends."

"Brilliant. Do you like Chinese?"   


She nodded an affirmative, and his answering smile made her stomach flip.  _ Oh, I am in trouble. _

  
  
  


"What on  _ earth _ possessed you, John?"

"I know."

"It's heinous! Truly, the most revolting color I've ever seen."

"I  _ know _ ."

She glanced down at the swatch in her hand, and back up at the wall, and then between the two several times, before she managed to continue. “Aged Pear,” she sighed. “You  _ voluntarily  _ purchased a paint called  _ Aged Pear. _ ”

“It looked good online!”

Rose turned slowly on her heel to face John, who was cowering beside her. Slowly, she pronounced, “You purchased paint… for your home… on the internet.”

“I was in distress!” John cried, throwing up his hands as if frightened of retaliation from his quietly infuriated interior decorator.

She simply tapped her foot impatiently. “Fine. Now, let me see the tapestry.”

Still gun-shy, John gestured to the thick material currently slung over his armchair. Rose’s eyes went right to it. For all this was her first time in his flat, she felt no discomfort and had no qualms about plopping down in what was clearly his favorite seat to get a closer look at the handiwork, spreading the thick wool out over her lap. As her fingers brushed over the fibers, she let out a soft sigh. “Oh, this is  _ lovely.  _ At least  _ somebody  _ in your family has taste.”

“I’m making an effort not to be insulted.”

But Rose didn’t seem to notice him; her whole focus was on the scene that was draped in front of her. The tapestry depicted a rolling field full of red grass, tall and rippling on an invisible wind. Overhead was a midnight blue sky, broken up by half-formed indications of constellations. On a distant hill was a tree, leaves silvery in moonlight.   


She observed it in silence for a long moment before speaking, her voice low, “I’ve never seen red grass before.”

“It grows in Africa,” John supplied, grateful to break the silence. “It’s red from the clay in the soil, I think. When I was a kid, my mum and dad took all of us to South Africa and went out into the grasslands and the whole of the plains were just  _ full  _ of it. It’s… very hardy — resistant to flames, even.” Her eyes flicked over in time to see him swallow. “It’s an indicator of a healthy environment, too. If you see red grass growing, you know they’ve had good rain and—”

“John,” Rose interrupted.

“Yes?”

“Let’s go get you some paint, so we can hang this beautiful thing up.”

He blinked, and then a sheepish smile came over his face. “I was babbling.”

She got up from the chair, fingers brushing over the tapestry one last time, then looked at him. Her eyes briefly narrowed in concentration, before she said, “You’re nervous.” Then, “You don’t need to be.” She didn’t have it in her to tell him that she was nervous, too — that she was just better at hiding it. Instead, she waited for him to say something, not letting her eyes drop, and hoping her cheeks weren’t as pink as they felt.

“Yes, well, I just… you’re here. You came.”

“Did you think I wouldn’t?”

“No,” he replied, with a short shake of his head. “It’s not that. Let’s go, yeah?” She knew a subject-change when she saw one, and she acquiesced. After they’d slid on their coats, he held out his hand, and she took it. The small comfort sent a frisson of warmth up her spine.

  
  


It took less time than Rose had anticipated for them to find an agreeable wall color. Mostly she held up paint samples and her quiet companion gave half-hearted shrugs that she did her best to interpret until they’d narrowed the range to shades of muted blue. Perhaps John was just on his best behaviour, but he seemed to have little interest in fighting her on paint choices. In fact, he seemed downright distracted. In the end, Rose just had him randomly choose from a handful of swatches - the result was a color called  _ Lupin _ .

Their ride home on the tube was strangely silent, interrupted with occasional shared grins, as if they were two teenagers who had just successfully skipped out on school — alight with mutual complicity, and relief. Friends, reunited after too long. The aura of mischief seemed to build up between them like a balloon, until the doors slid open at their stop, and John’s eyes moved to hers, just as his hand reached out. “Run,” he whispered.

They pelted out of the train car and through the echoing halls of the underground, giggles bouncing off of the walls, their heavy bag of paint and supplies dangling between them. They ran until she was panting for breath and pleading that they slow down — but regardless, his mode of distraction had apparently worked. Any residual tension between them dissipated with the last ripples of Rose’s hoarse laughter, puffing out into the cold like billowing smoke.

“I need to do more cardio,” she muttered breathlessly as they slowed to a walk.

John’s grin was wide and manic, even as his glasses slipped down his nose. “Well, there’s only a few times like the present.” He seemed like he might’ve taken off again, but she dragged him back, tugged on his arm.

“Don’t you dare! I’m knackered.”

"Fine," he answered with a laugh. "Suit yourself, we'll walk."

It was late in the day, and the typical foot traffic had slowed to a few people walking home from a late shift. The sunset shone gold in the windows of row houses and cast a pale light over the occasional drift of snow. The frigid air filled Rose with a bright energy that carried her down the slick sidewalks, eyes flitting between buildings, and occasionally to their interlinked, begloved hands. "You know," she mused. "I'm gonna have to charge you for labor now. This was just supposed to be a consult." Her grin was cheeky as she looked over at him, but his eyes were elsewhere. “John?”

The sound of his name seemed to call him back from some distant place, and brought a warmth to his expression that felt like sunlight breaking through clouds. “Hm?”

“You weren’t listening at all, were you?”

“No,” he admitted, smiling sheepishly. “I was just thinking… anyway, doesn’t matter.”

Impulsively, she squeezed his hand, wishing — not for the first time — that it wasn’t so damned cold out, so she could touch him properly. “Tell me,” she encouraged. “Honesty is key to a good working relationship.”

He sighed. “That’s just it, Rose.”

“What is?”

“It’s not… it’s just… well, it’s more than… a working relationship.” His voice had softened over the course of the sentence, practically disappearing along with any confidence he might have started with. Rose bit back the urge to question him, knowing that he’d probably get flustered and change the subject if pressed; she couldn’t help remembering that night, on her bed, and the way he’d blushed under her scrutiny as he told his story.   


Instead, she met his gaze and made a small motion around her mouth — locking it up and throwing away the key.

“Well, I’ve always been good at the big gestures. Storybook things. Things that read better on paper than in real life. Confessions.” His eyes dropped from hers, and his hand flicked up to adjust his glasses — a sure sign he was nervous. “Which is what I’m going to do now, because fuck it, I’ve already written you a book and read you poetry and came up with reason after reason to see you again. I’ve done everything else I could think of, and it  _ clearly  _ didn’t get the point across. So, out with it.”

He’d stopped walking. The bag hung heavy in their conjoined hands, and Rose felt almost numb — cut off from her extremities, floating somewhere amidst the visible puffs of breath that hung in the cold air. For a long moment, his eyes were everywhere but on her, before landing — snagging, almost physically tugging him toward her.   


“I love you.”

Rose blinked.

John looked surprised, eyes widening.

She could barely believe that she’d spoken, let alone that she’d spoken so clearly, without so much as a tremor in her voice. She sounded every bit like the kind of woman who would get into a verbal sparring match with a stranger at a bookstore, like a woman who wasn’t standing in front of someone she’d fallen in love with by accident and hoping against hope that he would just—

He didn’t ask before kissing her this time. He didn’t say anything at all, instead leaning in slowly, giving her plenty of time to wriggle away. Like before, he was giving her an out.

But she wasn’t going to take it.

It was a matter of months since she’d last felt the pressure of his mouth, but it felt like a matter of moments — somehow familiar and strange all at once. His lips were warm despite the biting chill, but his nose was cold, and the contrast of sensations brought on the gentle curl of a smile. Her heart thundered against her ribcage. She felt her breath stall in her lungs. And above all, she felt elation growing in her body like a balloon, sending her arms soaring up and around his neck. Without her grasp on the handle, the bag of paint cans tumbled to the concrete with a dull and distant thud.

Under her own lips, his matching smile grew.

Rose felt as if she might be glowing.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Up all night, with painting and other things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a surprise early update? unthinkable! 
> 
> i've been so bad about keeping up with this story and i wanted to finish publishing it by the end of october, so this final chapter and the epilogue will be going up today and tomorrow. that way, i can meet my goal in letter, if not in spirit. anyway! hope you enjoy the surprise fluff! and please note the change in rating. nothing terribly explicit happens, but it ought to be noted. 
> 
> what can i say? they're in love!

Chapter Nine

When they arrived back at the flat, the act of laying out drop cloths and opening paint cans became something of a dance. Despite the lateness of the hour and the kisses that lingered between them, Rose kept up a bright stream of chatter, and even picked some music to play — something with a syncopated rhythm that made her sway while she painted. He watched her move between strokes of his paintbrush; in truth, he was probably doing a horrible job, distracted as he was.

He’d let the moment pass, of course. The perfect “I love you” moment. He’d been so caught up in her foggy-warm kisses and pouring out his emotions in a nonverbal way. And then, she’d picked up their bags and guided him homeward, smiling brighter than a thousand string lights. Was she waiting for him? Was she disappointed that he hadn’t said it back right away? He wondered. He painted. He watched her move, sinuous and sweet.

It wasn’t long before the previous day had passed into the next, midnight sounds dampened by the cold outside, and still the pair of them painted. Grey coated the soles of Rose’s bare feet, and her overalls were splattered in the stuff. She hummed joyfully along with the crooning singer, and John was quite certain she’d never looked this beautiful. Or maybe he’d just never been able to appreciate her so unapologetically. Occasionally she would stop, and look at him, and smile, and it felt like she was warming him up from the inside every time. He found himself tongue-tied, wanting to reciprocate the sentence she’d spoken earlier, but unsure how.  


Rose began to yawn around the same time that Hozier began to beg his lover to take him to church. But all John could think of was taking her to bed. Of laying beside her as the dawn light rolled in, of falling asleep with the sound of her breathing beside him. It filled him with a longing that stopped him in his tracks, paintbrush hanging stupidly at his side.

“Tired?” she asked, her voice sympathetic and warm. “Me too.” Her gaze dropped down to her feet, where she wiggled her toes. “I s’pose it’s past time for me to leave.”

“You don’t have to go,” he rushed to reply. “You… I want… that is, you can stay, if you’d like.”

Rose grinned, and he almost certainly blushed. “Mr. Smith, how forward.”  


He huffed an awkward laugh. Was it? Was it forward for the woman who loved him to stay the night? The worry tickled his throat, and he cleared it. “Not like  _ that _ , necessarily, just… the bed’s plenty big enough, and you’ve been so helpful, and I could make you breakfast—!” He knew he sounded like an idiot, but he couldn’t seem to control the nervous energy flowing through him. With a shake of his head, he continued, “Really, you can stay. I… I want you to.”

He hadn’t noticed himself walking toward her; his whole body was filled with a vague sort of ache, only capable of being alleviated by the feeling of her skin under his. His hand reached, grasped hers. “Sorry. I’m a mess. I’ve just… been…”

“I’ll stay,” she said, fingers squeezing. “John, of  _ course _ I’ll stay.”

  
  
  


He’d offered her one of his old t-shirts (he didn't want to reflect on how old it was, or on how the band it advertised had been broken up since she was a teenager) and a pair of boxers (blessedly not-old) and a spare toothbrush that he'd never before had reason to break out, along with a nervous half-smile as he sent her off to the bathroom.

What the _ fuck _ was he doing?

It was one thing to have an unintentional sleepover — crashing on her bed because he was too tired to do a walk to the tube stop. But a conscious choice, made by two sane and sober and not-that-sleepy people who had absolutely no reason to be spending the night together, other than the sheer desire for the other's company?

He swallowed.

"John," Rose called from the bathroom. The sound of her voice broke him from his spiral, and he glanced up from the bedsheets to see her poking her head out. She kept the rest of her body carefully angled behind the door. "Why is your shower so complicated?"

"It's not complicated, it's just old," he replied, happy to have a distraction. "And the knobs are reversed. And they both twist counter-clockwise. Sometimes you have to rattle the left one."

He caught her rolling her eyes as she pulled her head back, but there was a sparkle in them. "Complicated," she insisted amusedly, before shutting the door behind her. Seconds later, the sound of water pattering against glass assured him that she'd sorted it out. And John deflated, head falling back against the comforter.

He  _ should  _ have been over the moon. On cloud nine. Walking on sunshine. People wrote songs about this feeling. People wrote poems.  _ He’d  _ written a book. But all he felt was… anxiety, crowding in on his vision like a black vignette. She hadn’t said whether she wanted to just sleep or not. Whether this might be… more. His hands itched to find candles and light them, just in case, to straighten the bedsheets (or better, buy new ones). He wondered if there should be music. Glasses on or off? Everything was a decision, a potential mistake, and it all went flying through his head in desperate circles.

This wasn't the time to be impulsive. She deserved for everything to be… perfect.

He wasn’t sure how long he sat there, hands fisted in his duvet, while the water ran from the tap and the girl he loved stood naked only a wall away.

When she emerged, she was wearing his clothes. It shouldn’t have been a surprise; he’d given them to her, after all. But a hot, heavy feeling spilled through his gut like lead, and his fingers twitched, but remained buried in his sheets. They’d kissed, yes, but that didn’t mean anything else was going to happen. Hell, he wasn’t even sure if anything else  _ should  _ happen — his body was too busy roiling in distress and uncertainty. Still, she looked… good.  _ Right. _

Rose — his wonderful,  _ brilliant _ Rose — seemed to notice the change in the air, and didn’t head straight for the bed, instead taking a circuitous route around the room. She eventually stopped at the bookshelf that adorned one white, unpainted wall. He knew the whole room was probably as unspeakably dreary as she’d expected. The books were the only thing in this space that he really felt were indicative of personality, and she moved toward them as if pulled. His eyes didn’t need to follow her to know she was almost certainly running her fingers along the spines, eyes drifting over his selection, silently making judgements and comparing his library against hers. After a moment, her soft voice broke the silence that he hadn’t noticed building.

“Whitman,” she said. “ _ Leaves of Grass. _ ” He could hear her smile as clearly as a bell, and it finally gave him the courage to look over his shoulder at her.

He half-grinned. “An old favorite. I keep two copies.”

He heard the creak in the spine as she opened the book, and flipped through the pages. After a long moment, she stopped her search and spoke. Her voice was feather-light, delicate, as she said, “ _ It is time to explain myself — let us stand up. What is known I strip away; I launch all men and women forward with me into the Unknown. _ ” She spoke with a lack of surety that made his hands twitch again, as if to reach out and steady her voice, to lend his support to the fragility of her words. But he stayed still, looking at her like she contained all the world.  


“ _ The clock indicates the moment _ ,” she spoke, walking toward the bed, eyes fixed on the page before her. The mattress depressed beneath her as she sat. “ _ But what does eternity indicate? _ ” Her gaze flicked up to meet his, and the tenderness in her look was what pulled him out of his frozen position on the bed. He stood, folded down the bedspread, and motioned for her to get beneath it.

She crawled up the bed, boxers sliding high on her thighs, her knees drawing up to her chest before extending, slowly and unsurely, beneath the sheets. She held up the book and, voice still low and soft, asked, “Is this okay?”

He nodded.

And for the first time in many years, someone John loved read to him.

When she began to doze, her eyes drooping and her fingers loose and her voice halting between words, he took the book from her grasp  _ —  _ gently, so as not to disturb her  _ —  _ and began reading himself. Like he had on a night so many months ago, he read until he was sure she was asleep, and long after, her head lolling against his shoulder. And after he was sure she wouldn’t wake, he turned out the light, and he slept.

  
  
  


When John woke, it was because the early afternoon sun had begun to bleed forcefully through the gap in his curtains. The harsh streak of bright dragged him into consciousness with a groan and an attempt to shift away from the offending light source. Only, he found he couldn’t move. A heavy weight — warm and Rose-shaped — rested on his chest, faintly stirring in response to his groan. He was captive to the press of her arms, to the gentle swell and decompression of her chest as she breathed, to the leg that had vined with his in sleep. And he smiled, not at all wanting to move.

“G’morning,” Rose mumbled, voice thick and her accent particularly strong. Her breath brushed over his shirt, seeped into his chest with a reassuring, sleepy heat.

“Good morning,” he whispered back, into her hair. “Sleep well?”

“Like a stone,” she answered. She nuzzled her nose deeper into his chest as if unaware of doing so, and her hands began to stir, clutching and releasing at his sides. “Mmmm, like a very lovely, happy stone,” she reiterated. “You?”

“Like the dead. Probably not the lovely dead.”

Her head slowly lifted, and her gaze met his, dreamy and unfocused. “Oh, I dunno. I wouldn’t say that.”

He wanted to kiss her until she couldn’t breathe, because he always wanted to, and especially because he’d just woken up with her wrapped around him in a way he’d only ever hoped for, dreamed of. Instead, he settled for a kiss placed on her forehead. “Flatterer,” he murmured.

“You’re irritatingly photogenic, actually.”

He chuckled. “Go back to sleep, Rose.”

"Can't make me," she practically hummed, but the sing-song in her voice held more than a trace of sleep. Still, her smile was bright, brighter than the sunlight streaming in through the window.

"D'you want coffee?" John found himself asking. He wasn't so much nervous as intent. On making her comfortable, at home. On making sure she didn't have to leave the bed. On keeping her here and happy for as long as possible.  


Rose shook her head, chin rocking on his sternum. "No, thanks." She let her head list to the side, so her ear pressed against his chest. Her eyes drifted shut. He imagined she could hear the irregular thump of his heart in his chest cavity.

_ Alright, so maybe he was a  _ little  _ nervous. _

"Is there anything you  _ do  _ want?"

Slowly, her eyes batted open again. Her hair was like a halo around her face, backlit in the afternoon sunlight, and her gaze was dark, the color of honey in his morning tea. Her movements were just as slow and sultry, no halting or hesitation. He barely knew what she was doing, and then her legs were on either side of him, hair falling like a curtain and swallowing the light from his window. It created a diffuse glow, a warm space between their faces that he ached to close. Her lips, peachy and stretched into a smile, hovered just out of reach. “Is this okay?” she whispered.

He wasn’t sure he could come up with anything to say with her so close, her body radiating that sleepy warmth, her arms bracketing his shoulders. It was just  _ Rose, Rose, Rose _ .

Dumbly, he nodded.

It was the third time they’d kissed  _ —  _ had it been that many times, that few?  _ —  _ and he still found the precise sensation of it to be indescribable. His mind was awash with adjectives. Warm, petal-soft, sweet. But he struggled to capture the energy, the intensity behind Rose’s mouth, the way her whole body leaned into him. She settled into the kiss like a stone in the bed of a river, her hips no longer hovering, but resting on his. Her hair tickled his cheek. Her hands were beginning to knit themselves into his curls. When her tongue met the seam of his mouth, it went through him like lightning. Kissing Rose — rather, being kissed by Rose — was a whole-body exercise, and he began to feel it immediately.

When her body shifted against his, he made an involuntary sound, barely more than a huff of breath. But Rose caught it. The corners of her lips drew upwards, and she repeated the motion deliberately, adding a pressure that made his whole body stiffen. “Rose,” he breathed, a warning, or an attempted one. His arms rushed down to steady her hips, keep her from rolling against him. It only served to pull her closer. His hands closed around her back, fingers warmed by the thin stretch of skin where her —  _ his  _ — shirt had ridden up. He lingered for a moment before the irresistible pull for more drew his hands higher, up the center of her back.

Being met by bare skin, no additional layers, felt almost unbelievably decadent. It felt like miles of soft, warm Rose, interrupted only by the slight bumps of her spine, the cushion of her hips, the faint hollow of dimples, the base of her neck where feather-soft hair met his fingers. If he let his hands drift to either side, he was met with the curves of her breasts, pressed to his body. It was all so distracting that he barely noticed the withdrawal of her mouth and the following kisses to his jaw, trailing down his neck.

Her hips rolled again. This time, he couldn’t constrain his hiss. “Rose,” he insisted. “I— you can’t,” but he couldn’t think what he wanted to say next. Instead, he simply rolled her over, pushing her to her back. He had to get some control back, or he’d go mad.

His gaze ran over Rose, stretched out on the bed. His shirt, bunched around the middle, and a strip of skin beneath. The tiny divot of her bellybutton. His pants, low on her hips. What felt like a mile of leg. His gaze returned to her face, and he must have looked sufficiently dumb-struck, because she was grinning, apparently satisfied with his perusal of her body. He didn’t need to say it, but he did. “You’re  _ beautiful _ .”

Her cheeks flushed pink, and pinker as he began to drag up the hem of the shirt. She suddenly pulled the neckline of it up over her mouth, muffling faint giggles. It was the sort of giddy pleasure sound he'd missed so much in their time apart. He began dropping kisses over her stomach like rain, sweeping his lips up the hollow between her breasts, listening for the hummingbird-thrum of her heartbeat. And then, he worked his way downward — because he could, because he wanted to, because she would let him. But even with the heat of her beneath him, even when her back arched and her breath came out in a stream that ruffled his hair, he couldn’t believe it.  


It all felt slightly unreal, impossible. Too soft and tender. Too dappled in perfect, golden sunshine that had no place in icy winter. He found himself snatching looks at her face, capturing each expression, because it all might go away. He wanted to tell her what the past months had been like, loving her in his broken, imperfect way and never knowing how to say, how to fix it all. He wanted to make her feel even a fraction of that feeling, press it into her with the force of his mouth and body.

"John," she breathed, as if she knew. "It's alright — I  _ love _ you."

He'd thought at length about how he'd wanted to do this; almost none of the scenarios had involved his faded grey sheets and bedhead. If he'd visualized Rose drenched in sunlight, it wasn't through frost-painted windowpanes in dreary London. But she  _ loved  _ him, and he didn't need rose petals and dripping candles and expensive wine to show her he loved her, too.

His head rested lightly against her thigh, and it felt hot and soft against his temple. "Say it again," he said, voice low. "Please."

"I—," and her voice hitched as his lips met her thigh, starting to trail higher, "l-love you."

"Once more."

Rose complied.

She repeated it again as his mouth reached its destination, speaking on a shuddering breath. His tongue spelled the words out over her skin and she said it again, as if passing the words back to him. With each swipe of his tongue, each rock of his fingers, she said something that sounded both more and less like "I love you."  


Her back arched, her fingers gripped, first the sheets and then his hair, and she probably would have said it again, only it seemed that she couldn't say much of anything at all. But her ragged breathing was enough. Her legs winding around his shoulders, the tangle of her hands in his hair, the taste of her on his tongue — they were enough.

"Please," she finally whimpered, fingers dragging at his shoulders, pulling him upwards. He slid up her body, feeling goosebumps erupt where their skin touched. "John, please," she repeated. Her whole body was taut, and he knew what she was asking for.

With hands shaking and his love on his lips, he gave it to her.

  
  
  


An hour or so later, Rose sighed into John’s chest, long and slow and heavy with satisfaction. He felt the breath across his skin, but it no longer prompted a strained shiver — only a continuation of that slow, spent feeling that moved through him like golden syrup. His fingers loosened around his copy of  _ Leaves of Grass  _ and it lolled off of his chest as he glanced down at Rose. Warm with afterglow and speckled with afternoon sunlight, she’d promptly cuddled into his arms and fallen back to sleep. But now, her eyes were wide and alert, looking up at him with owlish curiosity.

“What are you thinking?” he asked. Even to himself, his voice sounded deep and relaxed. He let the book drop and wound his other arm around her.

“Just about the past few months.” Her brow furrowed, and he thought it was too soon for her to feel tension of any kind, especially over the miserable months they’d spent out of communication. He wondered if he could kiss the stress away. But she buried her face further, hiding those worried brows from him. After a moment, she mumbled, “Were you writing that whole time?”

He snorted, thinking of the nights he’d spent curled up on the floor or sprawled across his kitchen table, the low battery light on his laptop his only company. “Well, I was certainly trying to. But I wasn’t terribly successful at first.”

Rose must have heard the wince in his voice, because she looked back up at him. The lines had only gotten deeper, her concern apparent. His thumb smoothed over them, a reflex that felt so natural he couldn’t believe he’d never done it before. “It took me a little while to realize that I need to start over, reframe everything. I’d spent so long believing I was doing the right thing, when really I was just stealing from you. There was no amount of editing that could make up for it.” It was his turn to frown as he added, “I know you joke, but I don’t actually want to  _ be  _ Hemingway. Turning people’s lives into fodder for my stories. At least, with Sophie, it was mutual. But with you… you trusted me, and I completely fucked it up.”

He felt her lips brush at his collarbone. “I forgive you.”

He felt any building tension start to leak out of him then, a smile taking its rightful place on his lips. That was the beauty of Rose, he realized. She gave everything so freely. Unasked, unsought. She’d shared her stories, and her sunshine, and now, her absolution. He pressed a kiss into the mess of her hair, and it smelled like his sheets. “Thank you,” he breathed.

“I was serious, too,” Rose added. “I want to help you edit. If it’s about the both of us, I… I want to make sure we get it right. Not because I don’t trust you, of course.” She smiled up at him, a faint stirring of her lips and a light in her eyes. “I do. I just want to support you, really. You keep so much inside and it seems like you only ever let it out in your writing. I want to see it. I want to be there for you.”

It felt, to John, like he might float off the bed.

To convince himself of his own weight, he gently rolled over, pinning her to the pillow. There was so much more for them to say, to talk about, to confess. But his heart was full as he told her what he’d wanted to say for months, ever since she’d first decided to pursue her passion. “I want to do that, too — for you. And not just because I don’t want to pay your consulting fees.” He grinned down at her and her halo of hair and her cinnamon eyes. “But because you’re brilliant,” he pressed a kiss to her throat, “and you make the world beautiful by being in it,” and her jaw, “and I love you.”  


When his lips met hers again — he couldn’t keep track of the number of their kisses now; it felt like so many and also not nearly enough — he thought he might like to stay like this forever. No more words, no more books. Just the two of them, speaking the shared language of lips and tongues.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> only a bit of epilogue to go! thank you for sticking with me and this story. you're all wonderful and deserve for eight to read to you in the bath.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Their happily ever after.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the epilogue! i can't resist a bit of "where are they now." hope you enjoy my conclusion to this little story.

Epilogue 

_ Two years later. _

The pale, early summer sun shone delicately through the shopfront windows, golden rays touching Rose’s bare shoulders like a pair of comforting hands. It was the first day warm and bright enough to go forth without the protection of a sweater or rain jacket, and she felt it was an auspicious sign for the first day of John’s book tour. '_Book tour,' _ he’d said, _ is rather overstating it, don’t you think? It’s just a few shops around London. _But Rose wouldn’t hear of it. This was a day for celebration—the first of many such days, she hoped. So, she’d put on a sundress she knew he liked—he’d peeled it off of her more than once in the past, including after her graduation party—and her very best arse-kicking lipstick, and she’d readied herself for a day on her feet and at the fringe of things, acting the supportive girlfriend. Which she was.

Only she knew, and John knew, she was much more than that.

She felt rather than saw a small brunette sidle up beside her, hand clasped around a sweating glass of something that looked like but probably was not water. “It’s packed in here,” the woman said, her lips pursed in a knowing smile.

Rose grinned over at Clara. “What can I say? I take one hell of a headshot.” She didn’t need to open the book clasped to her chest, because she could already see the photograph oh-so-clearly in her mind. Taken in their flat, as one of the test shots for a class on apartment staging. She’d been aiming for the lamp, but had ended up with a soft, golden-hued shot of John, the beginnings of a sunburst smile building on his lips. His hands resting on his shirt buttons as he attempted to redress after christening the apartment, and his glasses—so notably absent in his first headshot—starting to slide down his nose. His hair was a mess, and he looked just on the tolerable side of smug. Rose loved it. He’d laughed at it, and teased, “Put it on the dust jacket. Maybe it’ll summon another muse.” He joked, but Rose had insisted on doing just that.

She held the book closer, and smiled in that lovestruck way that she still found herself doing when she thought about John. She imagined she looked foolish; she didn’t care.

“I still think he looks just-shagged,” Clara drawled, rolling her eyes. “Disgusting.”

“Even you can’t deny he’s photogenic!” Bill, as she so often did, seemed to appear behind Clara out of nowhere. She wrapped her arms around the smaller woman and added, in a stage whisper, “For a bloke.”

“It was _ one time_!” Clara whined.

Rose just giggled and rolled her eyes at the pair. Getting to know Bill and Clara—recently Potts-Oswald and Oswald-Potts, respectively—had been an unexpected benefit of entering an honest-to-goodness relationship with John. His circle of friends was small, but fiercely loyal, and funny as hell. His family, on the other hand...

“Rosie!” _ Not so small. _The booming voice came as if summoned, and Rose fought not to roll her eyes again, lest the repeated action give her a headache. The two elder Smiths had appeared—Chris shadowed by James, as it seemed he always was. The former continued, “Has Johnny-boy left you all alone to languish in the back of the bookstore? His manners are disgraceful!”

“Oi! She’s not alone! I’m petite, not invisible,” Clara piped up. She stood on her tiptoes as if to alleviate the first issue, heavily leaning back against Bill, who was already grinning at Chris. The two not-quite-family-members had something of a partners-in-crime relationship that made any sensible person nervous. Rose felt they were all too apt to encourage the duo, but it could hardly be helped. They were two peas in a pod. Three, if you counted Clara’s occasional bouts of mischief. Clara, who was still speaking, her lips in a wicked grin. “Anyway, she’s hardly languishing…”

“Yes,” added Bill with an eager eyebrow wiggle, “I’d say she’s practically glowing!”

A particularly bright flush of sunshine crept through the window just then, turning Rose’s messy updo into a veritable halo of gold. The back of her neck warmed from the light and the attention.

Chris chuckled. “Isn’t she just?”

“Or is that sparkle the giant r—?” But Bill didn’t get to voice her question, because the proprietor of _ The Bookery _ had just stood up at the front of the crowd, waving her arms to garner attention.

“Ladies, gentlemen, valued patrons,” the vigorous woman began. She wasn’t terribly tall, but her vibrant energy seemed to fill the room as she encouraged attendees to take their seats. “Thank you for coming to this afternoon’s reading and signing. We’re so pleased to welcome our guest author, John Smith — no relation,” she added with a little laugh. The audience, many of whom seemed to know the woman in some capacity, tittered appropriately. “He’ll be reading passages from his much-anticipated second novel, _ Leaves of Paper, _as well as giving a little talk on his rather... unconventional writing process.” The shop-owner continued to lay out the itinerary for the afternoon, while Clara and Rose exchanged smug looks. The room was packed, and the signing would likely take ages. “If you need anything at all, feel free to ask one of our staff members, or ask for me, Sarah Jane. But without further ado, I give you… John Smith!”

Rose couldn’t stop herself from beaming as John stepped out from behind a row of shelves, one fidgety hand adjusting his glasses before approaching the — she was amused to note, _ mostly feminine _ — crowd. His eyes darted around for a moment before finding her, tucked away in the back. She gave a reassuring little wave, and his lips answered with a twitching hint of smile. He was nervous. She wished more than anything she could simply walk up there and take his hand. She’d been with him for every other part of the book’s process; it felt odd to be separate now.

There was a bit of lingering applause, which John blushingly waved away as he began. “Goodness, there are more people here than I was expecting. Thank you all so much for coming. I’m John, obviously, and before I say or do anything else, there’s something I need to make abundantly clear.” His eyes darted to her again, and his smile grew. “If any of you have read the book already, you no doubt can sense the spirit that inhabits it is _ not _ entirely my own. The character of Violet is a bit too real for that, don’t you think?” This was met with nods and hums of agreement. “Yes, I thought so, too. And that’s because, in a way, she _ is _ real. She’s based on the most… the most vibrant, warm-hearted, stubborn—sorry, Rose, I didn’t plan this bit, I’m normally better with the big, romantic gestures—”

But Rose couldn’t even blush. Her smile was too busy trying to crack her face in half as he gazed at her, eyes barely skimming over the heads of the crowd.

“Anyway, the character you all know and love is based on a very real, very human woman who was so kind as to share her light with me. Without her, this story wouldn’t exist. I’d probably still be sitting at _ that _table, just over there,” he pointed fondly, “waiting for something or someone sufficiently inspiring to cross my path. And without Rose’s ruthless edits and insistence that I tell you all something true, I don’t know where I’d be. Certainly not standing here.”

The faint burning in her sinuses began at the same moment that Chris lightly jabbed her with an elbow, a knowing grin on his face. “He’s gonna burst into song next,” he whispered.

She giggled. “Shut _ up._” But the man was right—John loved his dramatic declarations.

“So, Rose.” John smiled, ignoring the crowd in favor of looking straight into her heart. His blue eyes sparkled with knowing. Heads turned to seek her out, and the blush she’d been suppressing finally crept across her cheeks at all the attention. But she didn’t _ really _mind. His voice tethered her. “Thank you for agreeing to be my writing partner, and more recently, my wife. I can’t wait for the stories we’ve yet to live and tell, and I can’t wait to marry you.”

There was a general noise of surprise from the audience, and then applause, wonderfully hearty and punctuated with cooing and congratulations. Rose couldn’t help it. She laughed, and it carried like a sunburst across the room. Her hand—the one with the ring weighing a very particular finger—pressed to her chest, trying to hold it in — all of that joy, all of that love. But she couldn’t. She knew it would continue to burst out of her for as long as she lived, as long as they were together. It would manifest in new was all the time—in more stories; in photographs littering their home; in reading to each other before bed; in the way she would practically run down the aisle to marry with him in just a few short months. An outpouring that lodged her heart in her throat and blinded her with its intensity.

Across the room, across the crowd, she locked eyes with the person she wanted to spend her forever with. More blessedly imperfect than any headshot. Their story more wonderful than any she could possibly find in a book. And she mouthed, _ I love you. _John nodded, his face warm and pleased. He didn’t need to answer in words—she already knew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *hugs and cupcakes for you all*


End file.
